Circle raises $222M in Arc token presale from BlackRock, a16z
Key takeaways
- Andreessen Horowitz led the raise with a $75 million investment, according to CNBC.
- Institutional finance is the target market for Arc, which Circle has built as a public blockchain.
- The token supply at launch will total 10 billion, with Circle claiming a 25% stake that entitles it to run validator nodes, collect fees, and receive staking rewards.
Circle raises $222M in Arc token presale from Black Rock, a16z Quartz · SOPA Images / Getty Images Cris Tolomia Mon, May 11, 2026 at 6:37 PM GMT+7 2 min read CRCL BLSH Circle raised $222 million in a presale of the native token for Arc, its new public blockchain, valuing the network at $3 billion on a fully diluted basis, the company said Sunday.
Andreessen Horowitz led the raise with a $75 million investment, according to CNBC. Other investors include Black Rock, Apollo Funds, Intercontinental Exchange, SBI Group, Janus Henderson Investors, Standard Chartered Ventures, General Catalyst, Marshall Wace, ARK Invest, IDG Capital, Haun Ventures, and Bullish.
Institutional finance is the target market for Arc, which Circle has built as a public blockchain. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire described it as an operating system for economic activity that goes beyond stablecoins and payments. "We re becoming a broader internet platform company," Allaire told CNBC. "We re entering the operating system business and we re doing it by building this multi-stakeholder distributed model with a token, with a distributed network."