Austria-based FinTech unicorn Bitpanda raised an additional €10m as an extension of its Series B round of funding after its €142.5m round earlier in March this year.
This extension round saw participation from cryptocurrency and FinTech investors Jump Capital, Winterntermute Trading and LeadBlock Partners.
The first tranche of its Series B round led by Valar Ventures and DST Global gave it a valuation of $1.2bn making the crypto startup Austria’s first unicorn.
The company intends to use the funds to bring in extensive know-how to strengthen its institutional offering in Europe ranging from referral solutions all the way to custom build comprehensive tech integrations. Services will be integrated into apps and allow users to invest in all assets – whether it’s a FinTech, multi-bank, robo advisor, traditional bank or online platform.
Led by Eric Demuth, Bitpanda is a retail broker for buying and selling cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and over 20 other digital assets, gold and precious metals for its 2 million users.
Commenting on the firm’s growth, Demuth said, “Bitcoin and digital assets have proven that they are here to stay. It has been the best performing asset class of the last decade and now institutional investors want to participate the same way as retail investors. We are ready to meet this demand and are fully regulated as a company based in the EU with offices and experts around the continent.”
Echoing a similar sentiment, LeadBlock Partners general partner and co-founder David Chreng-Messembourg added, “Financial institutions have been closely monitoring the digital assets ecosystem for the past years. Today, the combination of better knowledge, a move into Bitcoin by corporates, i.e. MicroStrategy, Square, Tesla, and the acceleration of retail investing into digital assets, has pushed traditional financial players to facilitate access to digital assets for their customers.”
Institutional demand for cryptocurrencies is on the rise as the capital inflow and demand for investment products continues to soar. The first quarter of 2021 saw roughly $4.5bn of institutional capital inflow, compared to $3.9bn in the same timeframe last year.
Unsurprisingly, the firm has witnessed an upward graph since its inception. The Series B comes after the digital asset exchange platform’s raised its Series A funding of $52m (€44m) earlier in September 2020. The trading platform has also got its PSD2 payment service provider license. Furthermore, last year, the company established a tech hub in Krakow and now plans to form tech hubs and offices in Madrid, Barcelona, London, Paris and Berlin.
More recently, Bitpanda entered the competitive share trading space, taking on the likes of Revolut and Freetrade with the launch of fractionalised stocks and ETFs.
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