Figure Skating IPO Creates New Crypto Billionaire
NEW YORK – Figure Technologies founder Anthony Cagney has become a billionaire following the successful initial public offering (IPO) of figure, a fintech company leveraging blockchain technology. The surge in Figure’s stock price has propelled Cagney’s net worth to over $1 billion, according to the Bloomberg wealth index.
Figure, which recently went public, is focused on applying blockchain to financial services, including home equity lines of credit and, notably, is developing a layer 1 blockchain to enhance data security for Vietnam’s national Data Centre No 1, inaugurated in hanoi on August 18.
Cagney’s path to this milestone includes a history of founding and leading disruptive financial technology companies.He earned degrees in economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and began his career at Wells Fargo in 1994, eventually managing its financial products group. He founded Finaplex, a wealth-management platform acquired by Broadridge Financial Solutions in 2007.
In 2010, while a Sloan Fellow at Stanford University, Cagney co-founded SoFi, an online lender initially focused on student loans. He led SoFi through a $1 billion funding round in 2015 led by SoftBank Group, one of the largest private rounds for a startup at the time. He also co-founded Cabezon Investment Group, a hedge fund for family offices, which was later sold to SoFi.
Cagney resigned from SoFi in 2017 amid workplace controversies, including allegations of misconduct and a toxic work environment, and acknowledged having consensual relationships with female subordinates. He later reflected on SoFi’s rapid growth, stating in a 2019 Bloomberg interview, ”One of the biggest takeaways is that at SoFi, we grew so fast and we never really understood what we were going to grow into, and culture never took a front seat.”
Figure’s IPO follows a trend of strong performance from other crypto-related companies going public. Stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group saw a 168% jump on its first trading day in June, while Webull’s stock soared 500% in its initial days, creating billionaires of its co-founders. Gemini Space Station,led by the Winklevoss brothers,recently raised $425 million in an oversubscribed offering,valuing their combined stake at approximately $2.2 billion.
