Oct 21 (Reuters) - Crypto heavyweight Coinbase

said on Tuesday it has bought investment platform Echo in a

nearly $375 million cash-and-stock deal, aiming to bring

fundraising tools to its platform.

Dealmaking within the digital assets industry has picked up

pace this year as a crypto-friendly Trump administration

encourages companies to expand their business in the U.S.

Last week, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken unveiled a $100

million deal for futures exchange Small Exchange, paving the way

to launch a fully U.S.-based derivatives suite.

Echo's platform makes raising capital and investing more

accessible to the crypto community through private and public

token sales.

"We want to create more accessible, efficient, and

transparent capital markets," Coinbase said in a blog post.

While Coinbase will start with crypto token sales via Echo's

Sonar platform, the company later plans on expanding support to

tokenized securities and real-world assets.

Echo was founded by crypto trader Jordan Fish, widely known

by his "Cobie" pseudonym. The platform has helped crypto

projects raise more than $200 million since its launch two years

ago.

In May, Coinbase had struck a $2.9 billion deal for crypto

options provider Deribit, plugging a gap in its derivatives

portfolio and strengthening its international presence.