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London-based Blockchain.com, a crypto wallet and exchange operator, has secured $120M (approx €98.8M) from various “macro investors”. These investors include Moore Strategic Ventures (Louis Bacon), Kyle Bass, Access Industries, Rovida Advisors, Lightspeed Venture Partners, GV (aka Google Ventures), Lakestar, Eldridge, among others.
The company has raised over $190M (approx €156.5M) in funding since its inception in 2011.
Speaking on this development, Peter Smith, CEO and co-founder of Blockchain.com says, “Fundraising as news is a bit strange to me. To be clear, I recognise all of the hard work the team has put in to accelerate the growth of Blockchain.com and crypto writ large – but what I’m most excited about hasn’t happened yet. Our mission is to empower anyone anywhere to control their money and we’re just getting started.”
According to a report by Fortune, this deal pushes the company’s private valuation to more than $3B (approx €2.47B), including the money raised.
About the Blockchain.com
The company was founded in 2011 by Benjamin Reeves, Nicolas Cary, and Peter Smith. Previously known as Blockchain.info, Blockchain.com is a platform that offers ways to buy, hold and use cryptocurrency. Blockchain.com claims to be creating a financial system for the internet that empowers anyone in the world to control their money.
With over more than 50 million customers on its platform, the company claims to offer a fast and easy way to buy bitcoin, trade crypto, send, receive, secure, and borrow digital currencies.
“When we set out to raise our Series A in late 2014, there were only a handful of venture-backed crypto companies. A bitcoin was worth hundreds of dollars and we were pleased to power just over 2 million wallets in the wild. Six years later, Bitcoin just crossed the monumental price target of $50K (approx €41K),” says Peter Smith.
The company has managed to create over 65M Wallets in over more than 200 countries. And, 28 per cent of all Bitcoin transactions since 2012 have occurred via Blockchain.com, representing billions in transaction volume.
Peter adds, “What excites me most about this moment is the immense optimism about cryptocurrency from serious, institutional investors. In fact, the current bull run is dominated by stories of Fortune 500 companies, investment funds, and institutions driving net inflows into crypto. The fact that the best macro investors in the world participated in our latest fundraise is further proof that institutions are taking a serious look at their crypto strategy.”
Market overview
Blockchain.com explorer is one of the most trafficked websites in the world to find out what’s happening in the crypto markets as it looks to revolutionising the $14T (approx €11.5T) financial services industry.
Smith says in a blog post that, Blockchain.com’s Institutional Markets business is swelling from growth. Though the company’s core business is the Wallet, Peter says its institutional markets business is growing such that it covers the entire operational cost of the business globally as well as delivers additional operating profits.
The pandemic has also added an “unprecedented level of distrust in traditional financial institutions,” which has spiked the demand says Smith. However, he sees a fundamental shift coming when it comes to commerce, investments, and global communications and stresses that he “couldn’t be more optimistic about the future.”.
“Paradigm shifts like crypto can feel to the world as though they happened overnight – but for those of us working day in and day out to build technology and innovation in crypto, this has been a long time coming,” Smith insisted.
“More than ever before, crypto begins to seem like the real Robin Hood of finance,” he says. “It’s time to bring billions of people into crypto and millions of institutions around the world. It’s time to build a financial system for the internet.”