Bitpanda, a European Crypto Exchange, received a m funding from Valar Ventures in its first major investment round. Valar Ventures is owned by tech mogul Peter Thiel.
The exchange engages in trading cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and ethereum. It also facilitated the trade of precious metals.
This latest investment will help Bitpanda hire 70 new employees, revving up total to 300. The company aims to expand its.
Apart from aiming to capture the European market, company seeks to offer stock market services to customers next year.
As a part of this investment, Valar Ventures exec Andrew McCormack is all set to join Bitpanda’s executive board. “Together, we’re going to ensure everyone in Europe has the power to access the financial markets and invest in their financial futures as we build Europe’s next fintech unicorn,” McCormack said in a statement.
Bitpanda’s repertoire
From its seed funding round in 2016 and initial exchange offering in 2019, Bitpanda has raised approximately 0m.
The company has grown a lot since its inception in 2014 and is now active in 34 countries. Its Bitpanda Pro feature handles transactions of more than $2m every day and cumulatively helped $1b in transactions in 2019.
The company brags of several services like Bitpanda Swap, Bitpanda Savings, Bitpanda Ecosystem Token, and Bitpanda Pay.
Bitpanda stated that France, Spain, and Turkey were the fastest-growing spots for crypto-trading. The company even attested to serving 100,000 users solely for gold trading.
Also successful were the company’s Defi services. “We just launched a Defi market on our broker and it went through the roof,” CEO Eric Demuth said. “People are really crazy about buying Defi coins.”
Regulation on crypto-trading
Some major nations in the world are opting for regulation over cryptocurrency trading. This could create a government oversight over Bitpanda’s expanding operations. With European giant Russia creating laws against non-disclosure of crypto-assets and blacklisting Binance, and India mulling on banning crypto-trading altogether, no one can guess which government will go for it next.
However, Peter Thiel is a legend in tech investment circles, and his reputation as PayPal founder precedes him. Moreover, he was the first investor in Mark Zuckerburg’s Facebook and clearly has impressive foresight. Therefore, only time will tell if Thiel’s investment pays off.
