Bitpanda triples valuation in five months to US$4.1bn
Bitpanda, a Vienna-based digital investment platform is now valued at $4.1 billion after a $263 million round led by Valar Ventures, the venture capital firm co-founded by U.S. tech billionaire Peter Thiel.
The new financing round comes just four months after Bitpanda achieved Unicorn status from a $170 million Series B. This latest valuation is more than three times the $1.2 billion Bitpanda was worth in its last private financing round and the latest cash injection brings the company’s total raised to nearly $500 million.
The crypto exchange announced that it plans to spend the newly-raised capital on technology, international expansion, and growth.
From the start until now, how has the company developed?
Founded in Austria in 2014, Bitpanda started as a crypto-trading company and has since grown into an investment platform comprising commission-free fractional stocks, cryptocurrencies, or precious metals.
During the past year, Bitpanda surpassed many milestones, including growing customers to more than 3 million users and 500 employees. Throughout 2020, the firm also opened offices in France, Spain, Turkey, and Italy.
In June, it tapped into the potential of the B2B market with Bitpanda While Label, opening its infrastructure to fintechs or banks that want to offer trading to their clients, and earlier this month pledged to invest €10 million in a blockchain research & development hub, employing 30 full-time developers.
The company is on track to achieve 6x customer growth year over year, while revenues are projected to increase sevenfold in 2021 as compared with the previous year.
What’s next for Bitpanda?
“No matter how “cool” it looks from the outside, growing at such a pace is not an easy thing to do. It sometimes feels like you’re building a rocketship while simultaneously flying it. And there really is only a special category of people that are truly comfortable doing this. This is the reason why we’re going to focus on strengthening our team by bringing the right talent onboard as we continue shaping our company for scale.” said Eric Demuth, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Bitpanda.
Four key executive hires have joined the team to shape the future growth trajectory of Bitpanda: Lindsay Ross, ex-Adyen and MessageBird, as Chief HR Officer; Irina Scarlat, ex-Revolut and Uber, as Chief Growth Officer; João Luís, ex-Farfetch, as VP of Engineering; and Michael Keskerides, ex-N26, as VP Product.
“International expansion and growth are our key priorities: we’ll keep building the team, opening new offices and launching new markets and products as we design for scale and optimise for growth,” added Demuth.
The digital investment platform now intends to expand into new European markets, with plans to open a tech hub and office in Barcelona, alongside future talent hubs in London, Milan, Paris, Berlin and Istanbul.
(Image source: Bitpanda)