Headquartered in Vienna, Austria, Bitpanda offers an exchange platform for digital assets like cryptocurrency. The fintech recently got candid about securing an additional EUR 10 million as an extension of its Series B round.

In March 2021, the company had raised an impressive sum of USD 170 million that accounts for approximately EUR 142.56 million in a funding round led by DST Global and Valar Ventures. This was a Series B round, and the total valuation of USD 1.2 billion (approximately EUR 1 billion) made Bitpanda Austria’s first unicorn status fintech.

List of investors

The Series B extension round witnessed crypto and fintech investors Jump Capital and market makers Winterntermute Trading. Another investor that invested in Bitpanda to bolster its institutional offering in Europe was LeadBlock Partners.

On the investment, David Chreng-Messembourg, Founding Partner, Venture Capital Investor at LeadBlock Partners, said, “Financial institutions have been closely monitoring the digital assets ecosystem for the past years. Today, the combination of better knowledge, a move into Bitcoin by corporates (i.e., MicroStrategy, Square, Tesla), and the acceleration of retail investing into digital assets have pushed traditional financial players to facilitate access to digital assets for their customers.”

The reason why investors chose Bitpanda

Even though several platforms are running in this sector, Bitpanda has shown an exceptional pace of adoption. This could be the primary reason that attracts investors to the Austrian fintech.

In September 2020, Bitpanda secured USD 52 million (approximately EUR 44 million) in Series A funding led by Valar Ventures, a venture capital firm supported by Peter Thiel. Speedinvest also was a participant in this round.

Where to invest?

Established in 2014 by Christian Trummer, Eric Demuth, and Paul Klanschek, Bitpanda is a digital assets platform deployed to allow the trading of cryptocurrencies.

The platform claims to eliminate complex financial barriers by making the most of the innovative power of digitized assets and blockchain technology. It also offers minimum fees, real-time settlement, and a 24/7 trading window.

The platform also owns a PSD2 (European regulation for electronic payment services) payment service provider license. And users currently are allowed to trade Bitcoin, gold, Ethereum, and more than 20 digital assets using this platform.

Since its inception, Bitpanda has earned over 2 million users across the world and operates with a 330 members strong team size.

As per a press release, strategic investments are the force that bolster Bitpanda’s institutional offering in Europe that ranges from referral solutions to custom-built tech integrations.

On the operations front, services will be incorporated into apps and will enable users to invest in all assets from any of the following,

  • Fintech
  • Multi-bank
  • Traditional bank
  • Online platform

The expert’s take

Eric Demuth, Co-Founder and CEO of Bitpanda, says, “Bitcoin and digital assets have proven that they are here to stay. It has been the best performing asset class of the last decade, and now institutional investors want to participate the same way as retail investors. We are ready to meet this demand and are fully regulated as a company based in the EU with offices and experts around the continent.”