Bitcoin Market, a Latin American digital asset exchange, has raised $200 million in Series B funding from the Softbank Latin America Fund.
The round values 2tm group, the non-operating parent company of the bitcoin market, at $2.1 billion, placing it among the top 10 unicorns in Latin America.
Reading: Brazil mercado group bitcoin 200m series
The funding comes just a few months after the saint pablo market bitcoin series round (of an undisclosed amount) in January 2021, which was co-led by g2d/gp investments and parallax ventures, with participation from hs investimentos, gear ventures, Évora and genial. jpmorgan and negotiator.
also comes after an impressive first half of the year for the company. Between January and May 2021, Bitcoin Market says around 700,000 new customers signed up to use its services, bringing its customer base to 2.8 million. That’s more than 70% of the entire individual investor base on the Brazilian stock market, according to the company. Furthermore, during the first five months of the year, the bitcoin market saw a surge in trading volume to $5 billion, which is more than the total volume it saw in its first seven years combined. it is also 11 times the volume experienced during the same period in 2020.
Founded by brothers Gustavo and Mauricio Chamati in 2013, Mercado Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency exchange in Brazil. The company has been profitable since 2018, and as of January 2021 had been driven from the ground up, reinvesting its cash generation into growth and portfolio expansion, according to 2TM Group CEO and CEO Roberto Dagnoni. /p>
“This makes us somewhat of a unique case in the ecosystem and among our fintech peers in general: few companies have managed to reconcile over 100% year-over-year growth with a positive bottom line,” he told techcrunch, describing the bitcoin market. as “the jewel in the crown” of the 2tm group.
The holding company owns several other entities, including meubank, a multi-asset wallet and account service currently awaiting a license from the Brazilian central bank; bitrust, a qualified digital custodian, and clearbook, an equity crowdfunding platform, among others.
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In 2019, the 2tm group became the first company in the world to tokenize public debt assets. Then, in 2020, the company issued Futecoin, the world’s first digital asset based on the FIFA solidarity mechanism.
“We have also tokenized or distributed private debt, carbon credits, and a variety of utility and defi tokens,” Dagnoni said. this year, bitrust will extend the first digital custody service based in latin america.
“there is much more to come, and the b series will be a relevant factor to support continuous innovation”, added dagnoni. While he declined to disclose the amount of the bitcoin market series round, he said it allowed the company to invest around $40 million in expanding its operations in Brazil this year.
Today, Bitcoin Market has around 500 employees. that compared to around 200 a year ago. By the end of the year, Dagnoni projects that it will have a workforce of around 700.
In addition to hiring, he said the bitcoin/2tm market will also use the new capital to expand its service offerings and invest in infrastructure “to meet the growing demand for cryptocurrencies in the region.” In particular, the company will focus on acquiring new clients and product listings, as well as expanding into other countries such as Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Chile “through a combination of mergers and acquisitions and greenfield operations,” according to dagnoni.
So what exactly has driven the bitcoin market so much growth? dagnoni believes there are a number of factors behind this.
“Millions of people around the world are realizing that digital assets and cryptocurrencies are innovative in their technological foundations and efficient in storing value, and Brazil is no exception to this trend,” he said.
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In addition, the country has seen some of the lowest interest rates on record, which he says has fueled the development of the alternative asset industry.
“Cryptocurrencies are taking advantage of this trend, which is also showing for other asset classes such as VCs and private equity,” Dagnoni said.
and finally, he believes that the fact that the Brazilian financial services industry is so concentrated has represented an opportunity for fintech in general in the country.
paulo passoni, managing partner of softbank’s sbla advisors corp. (which manages the softbank latin america fund) described the bitcoin market as a “regional leader in the crypto space” that is “taking advantage of a huge local and regional addressable market.”
added: “at softbank we seek to invest in entrepreneurs who are challenging the status quo through technology-centric or technology-enabled business models that are revolutionizing an industry – the bitcoin market is doing just that.”
softbank has been active in latin america lately. In early June, the Japanese investment conglomerate said it would invest “up to $150 million” in Grupo Bursátil Mexicana (GBM), a 35-year-old investment platform in the Mexican stock market.
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