Spencer Trask & Co. Nets Public Stake in Circle Internet Group at NYSE Debut

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Strong IPO validates early discovery of the USD Coin by Spencer Trask and SeedInvest

Spencer Trask & Co., the advanced-technology development firm known for discovering and backing transformative innovations, announced its 2019 sale of crowdfunding investment platform SeedInvest to Circle Internet Financial Ltd. has matured into a public stake following Circle’s successful initial public offering (IPO) on June 5.

“The Circle IPO is a landmark moment for the future of the global financial system,” said Kevin B. Kimberlin, Chairman of Spencer Trask & Co. “We merged SeedInvest into Circle at the start of USDC, recognizing its potential to become the dollar-backed internet currency the world needs.”

Market Validation of the USDC Thesis

Spencer Trask became a major Series A investor at SeedInvest’s inception. Seedinvest built the largest equity crowdfunding platform in the U.S. and connected 850,000 investors with more than 500 startups. Just before the launch of USDC, SeedInvest agreed to exchange shares with Circle.

“Yesterday’s IPO marks a major milestone for both Circle and everyone who helped build SeedInvest,” said Ryan Feit, founder and CEO of SeedInvest. “Spencer Trask backed us when we were just getting started and has been an invaluable partner throughout our journey.”

Circle’s traction and impact has been notable:

  • $400 million in private capital from BlackRock and Fidelity after USDC’s launch.
  • An oversubscribed IPO, reflecting strong institutional demand.
  • USDC has powered more than $25 trillion in on-chain transactions overall and $5.9 trillion in Q1 2025 alone—a 500 percent year-over-year increase.


“With Circle now listed on the NYSE, investors are boarding the train we identified at its inception,” Kimberlin added. “Our conviction in Circle echoes our belief in the inevitable digitization of money and the need for trusted, transparent, regulated infrastructure, just as we once saw Ciena’s capacity to power the optical networks that connect the world.”

Today, Circle continues its mission to deliver inclusive, secure financial services to the 1.4 billion unbanked adults worldwide (World Bank), a goal that aligns with Spencer Trask’s legacy of supporting technologies that lift civilization.

A Track Record of Discovery

Spencer Trask’s history of being the first to discover and support transformative technologies includes: Ciena Corporation, powering the Internet for 85% of the largest global telecommunications providers, Interos, the first AI-enabled supply chain risk monitoring platform, with the world’s largest B2B dataset, vLex/Fastcase, the world’s largest AI-enabled legal research platform, and DFMsim, a critical engine in Applied Materials’ AIx platform, simulating the full-stack design and manufacturing of integrated circuits—the most complex process in the modern economy.

“Our philosophy is to discover technologies that can redesign the future,” Kimberlin said. “Circle’s commitment to compliance and technical excellence squarely fits that tradition, and we congratulate Jeremy Allaire, Sean Neville, Ryan Feit, and the entire Circle team on this historic IPO. Their dedication is paving the way for a more open, inclusive, and efficient global economy.”

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The Immune Response Corporation

Revolution in Immunotherapy

DISCOVERY – Non-infectious viral vaccines.

INNOVATOR – In the history of medicine, few figures have had as profound an impact on human health and wellbeing as Dr. Jonas Salk. His polio vaccine breakthrough was the culmination of centuries of research, dating back to Louis Pasteur discovering inoculation. However, Salk’s method was different. He found a way to protect people from viruses without giving them the very disease the vaccine was designed to prevent.

Using this no-infection method, Salk worked with Kevin Kimberlin of Spencer Trask to develop cancer vaccines and an immunotherapeutic to slow or prevent AIDS. They patented and conducted preclinical studies on a cancer vaccine that demonstrated a startling 90% protection against lethal malignancies. 

IMPACT – A fusion of dendritic cells and the cancer antigen, their technology formed the basis for the first FDA-approved cell-based immunotherapy. Over 40,000 men with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer have received the treatment, and it appears especially effective for African-American men who receive a 48% improved survival benefit compared to white men.

The team and facility making this immunotherapy also made clinical and commercial supplies of the first approved gene therapy, the CAT-T drug Kymriah.

The first approved cell-base immunotherapy and gene therapy prompted the FDA Commissioner to say, “New technologies such as gene and cell therapies hold out the potential to transform medicine and create an inflection point in our ability to treat and even cure many intractable illnesses.”

The noninfectious vaccine approach developed by Jonas Salk eliminated polio from the developed countries, his flu vaccine mitigated the effects of influenza for the past 75 years, and finally, the cancer vaccine developed at his Immune Response Corporation led the way to gene, cell-based, and immune therapy innovations that will impact human health for generations. In summary, Salk released the last step in enabling the most important preventative medicine – non-infectious viral vaccination.