Stablecoin giant Tether is looking to raise between $15 billion and $20 billion for about a 3% stake in the company through a private placement, Bloomberg reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The massive raise would bring its valuation to around $500 billion, putting it in the same league as OpenAI and SpaceX, Bloomberg reported. Tether would be issuing new equity, and Cantor Fitzgerald is acting as lead adviser.
Tether’s USDT has market cap of around $172.8 billion, making it the largest among stablecoins. Circle, which recently went public in the U.S., is the issuer of USDC, which has the second-largest market cap of $74 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data.
The report of the raise comes as Tether recently reported $4.9 billion in net profit in the second quarter and held over $162.5 billion in reserves against $157.1 billion in liabilities. It also holds about $8.9 billion in bitcoin in its reserves.
Bloomberg said that the talks of the deals are in early stages, and the final numbers of the raise could be significantly lower. According to the report, prospective investors have been given access to a data room over the past few weeks to facilitate the deal.
CoinDesk has requested Tether for comments.