January closes with a clean signal out of Palo Alto, not noise, not hype. C1 Fund Inc., trading on the NYSE as CFND, just logged its first portfolio company exit less than six months after its own public debut. The company is BitGo Holdings, Inc., now trading as BTGO, and the message is simple. Infrastructure that does the hard work eventually gets paid for showing up early and staying regulated when everyone else is loud. This is how credibility compounds inside a serious startup ecosystem.
BitGo did not arrive overnight. Founded in 2013 by Mike Belshe, a former Google Chrome engineer who helped shape the backbone of modern internet protocols, the company built its name on custody when custody was an afterthought. Multi-signature wallets. Institutional-grade security. Regulated trust operations. Boring to the tourists. Essential to the people moving real size. That patience culminated on January 22, 2026, when BitGo priced its IPO at eighteen dollars per share, above range, raised roughly $212 million, and entered the public markets with a valuation north of $2 billion. In a maturing startup ecosystem, this is what durable infrastructure looks like when it finally meets liquidity.
For C1 Fund, this was not a victory lap. It was proof of construction. Dr. Najamul Hasan Kidwai, Co-Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, framed the moment plainly. This is what maturation looks like in digital assets when governance and timing stop being optional. Alongside Chief Investment Officer Elliot Han, the thesis has been consistent: identify late-stage infrastructure companies with scale, regulation, and a credible path to public markets, then give public investors access before the curtain lifts. That positioning is still rare in the broader startup ecosystem.
The timeline matters. C1 Fund priced its own IPO in August 2025. By January 2026, BitGo was already ringing the bell. No theatrics. No victory language. Just execution. The fund’s structure is designed to bridge a gap retail investors have been locked out of for decades—the value creation that happens before the ticker shows up on a screen. This exit is the first data point that the bridge holds weight.
There is wordplay hiding in plain sight. BitGo went public by staying private longer than most thought comfortable. C1 Fund went public to stay closer to private markets. Two different paths crossing at the same intersection, regulation, patience, and timing doing the heavy lifting while the crowd chases velocity. In today’s startup ecosystem, this is what alignment actually looks like.
