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Long suspected, now the time has come: Viennese cryptocurrency Bitpanda is official for Unicorn it also has a valuation of more than a billion dollars. In a Series B round led by Peter Thiel’s venture capital company Valar Ventures, the company raised $ 170 million (the equivalent of around 142 million euros). Its valuation is $ 1.2 billion, according to TechCrunch. This is the first time that a company from the Austrian startup scene has become Unicorn.
Valar again leading investor, DST Global new on board
Valar had already led the $ 52 million Series A round last September. At that time, no information on the evaluation was communicated. A new investor, DST Global, also participated in the round that has now been announced.
Equity investments are also possible in the future
“We have been profitable for four years, but in September we changed our strategy and we want to become ‘the’ investment platform for everyone in Europe,” Bitpanda said.Co-founder Eric Demuth of TechCrunch as cited. In the previous week, Bitpanda caused a stir with the announcement that it will also be possible to invest in (partial) stocks and ETFs on the platform starting in April.
The company had previously launched the Bitpanda Visa debit card in February, which is directly linked to users’ Bitpanda wallets. Gold and silver precious metals trading has been possible on Bitpanda since May 2019, after the company was previously a pure crypto broker.
2 million users
Bitpanda claims to have 2 million users. In recent months, the company has benefited greatly from the current crypto hype. It wasn’t until early January that BitpandaCo-founder Paul Klanschek said in an interview with brutkasten: “We now have 1.6 million users and currently between 5,000 and 10,000 registrations are added every day.” At that time, the price of Bitcoin had passed the $ 40,000 mark for the first time. $ 50,000 followed in mid-February, $ 60,000 last weekend.
From coinimal to unicorn
Bitpanda was founded in October 2014 by Eric Demuth, Paul Klanschek, and Christian Trummer and went online the following December, at the time under the name Coinimal. The brutkasten reported on the company in June 2015:
The ATM is operated by Coinimal. The Vienna startup aims to sell and buy Bitcoin & Co. and was founded in October 2014. Eric Demuth, Paul Klanschek, and Christian Trummer are the founders of Coinimal. The idea came from their own necessity: as Bitcoin enthusiasts, all three of them know how difficult it is to acquire Bitcoins in the EU. Their platform is fully automated: as soon as a payment is confirmed, Bitcoins & Co. are sent automatically.
In September 2019, Bitpanda-Co-founder Eric Demuth in the brutkasten interview when asked how long it will be before the company becomes Unicorn Will replied: “Approx. one year. But it cannot be said exactly ”. So it wasn’t too far from the truth.
Disclaimer: Bitpanda GmbH has a 3.9849% stake in Brutkasten Media GmbH.
