Kraken

Kraken is a San Francisco-founded, now Cheyenne, Wyoming-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange and financial services company operated by parent entity Payward, Inc., offering spot and derivatives trading, staking, an institutional prime brokerage platform, and a Wyoming-chartered digital-asset bank (Kraken Financial). Founded on July 28, 2011 by Jesse Powell, Thanh Luu, and Michael Gronager, the company has grown into one of the world's largest crypto exchanges by volume, serving retail and institutional clients across more than 60 countries.

Kraken is led by co-CEOs Dave Ripley and Arjun Sethi, with co-founder Jesse Powell serving as Chairman of the Board. Jesse Powell served as CEO until 2022, when he stepped down and Dave Ripley — previously Kraken's longtime COO — became sole CEO; Arjun Sethi, a co-founder of venture firm Tribe Capital, joined as co-CEO alongside Ripley in October 2024. In June 2025 Kraken relocated its global headquarters to Cheyenne, Wyoming, citing the state's crypto-friendly regulatory framework, and in March 2026 the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City approved a limited-purpose Fed master account for Kraken Financial — the first time a cryptocurrency firm has been granted direct access to the Fed's core payment rails.

In 2025 and 2026 the company raised several rounds of private capital, including a $500 million round in September 2025 at a $15 billion valuation, an $800 million dual-tranche round in November 2025 (a roughly $600 million primary tranche alongside a $200 million secondary tranche led by Citadel Securities) at a $20 billion valuation, a secondary share purchase by Deutsche Börse in April 2026 that implied a lower $13.3 billion valuation, and a $100 million strategic investment from Nasdaq Ventures in September 2026 at a $21 billion valuation tied to a partnership to distribute tokenized Nasdaq-listed equities. Payward confidentially filed a draft S-1 registration statement with the SEC on November 19, 2025.

Kraken paused its planned early-2026 U.S. public listing in March 2026 amid weak crypto asset prices and low trading volumes, and in May 2026 cut roughly 150 jobs (about 5% of its workforce) while citing AI-driven efficiency gains, even as co-CEO Arjun Sethi said the company remained roughly 80% ready to go public. As of September 2026, reporting indicates the IPO timeline has slipped to no earlier than the second quarter of 2027, with no S-1 publicly filed, no underwriters named, and no price range announced. The company remains privately held.