Bitpanda, a crypto belongings platform, has closed a $52 million Sequence A funding spherical from Valar Ventures, a enterprise capital agency backed by Peter Thiel. Vienna-based VC Speedinvest additionally participated, alongside different unnamed traders. Claiming 1.3 million customers, Bitpanda has beforehand been buying and selling digital belongings and tokenizing precious metals.
The Vienna-based firm will use the money to develop internationally. It expanded to France, Spain and Turkey in 2020, and plans to enter extra European markets this yr and subsequent. It has 300 staff.
Basically, Bitpanda is a crypto alternate which might assist other forms of belongings in a tokenized kind. So far, it’s not very well-known or used within the crypto world.
What this represents is an fascinating transfer by a crypto alternate, successfully increasing into real-world belongings. On the different finish of the spectrum, platforms like eToro, Robinhood and Revolut, which got here from conventional belongings world, and at the moment are including crypto world belongings. Finally, the 2 will meet, in some form or kind.
Bitpanda is a centralized alternate with its personal infrastructure, and isn’t operating on a public blockchain. Different centralized exchanges embrace Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, Kucoin and Huobi.
As a part of the funding, Valar Ventures founding associate Andrew McCormack may even be part of Bitpanda’s board. McCormack was beforehand with PayPal in its early years and supported Peter Thiel throughout its IPO and eventual sale to eBay in 2002. Valar has beforehand invested in European fintechs together with TransferWise and the Germany-based digital financial institution, N26.
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