Alpaca, a stock brokerage platform that offers APIs for FinTech apps to connect and trade in US stocks, raised $50m and plans to launch cryptocurrency trading.
Tribe Capital led the Series B funding round, with participation from Horizons Ventures, Eldridge, Positive Sum, Portage Ventures, Spark Capital, and Social Leverage.
The funding round comes after the company’s late-2019 $6m seed round and late-2020 $10m Series A.
Alpaca offers equities trading software via API. The company initially allowed firms to plug into its technology, powering the trading capabilities of investing groups. More recently, Alpaca has begun allowing other fintech companies to offer equities trading through its service to their consumer user bases
Launched in 2018, Alpaca saw a 1500% year to date growth in brokerage accounts and expanding partnerships across Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, North and Latin Americas.
Alpaca CEO Yoshi Yokokawa said, “By the end of the year, we’re going to see close to 100 global FinTech apps built with our APIs go live with their stock trading platforms.
“We’re unlocking the ability to invest in US companies in places around the world that have never had this opportunity and through fintech partners that share our vision of democratizing investing.”
Alpaca has also teamed up with Plaid to allow broker API partners to simplify the account funding experience for their customers. The firm is now set to launch a cryptocurrency product for both its retail consumers and B2B partners. Customers will soon be able to buy, sell, hold, and trade cryptocurrencies via Alpaca’s developer-first APIs.
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