Bitso, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in Latam, has reached unicorn status after a funding round that managed to raise $250 million with the participation of some big names in the cryptocurrency world. The company announced it would use these resources to expand its operations and keep growing in its core markets, including remittances.
Bitso Reaches Unicorn Valuation After Series C Funding Round
Mexico-based exchange Bitso has become the first LATAM cryptocurrency unicorn, after getting a valuation of $2.2 billion on its Series C funding round. The round got participation from important names in the investing sphere, being led by New York-based privately-owned hedge fund Coatue Management LLC and Tiger Global, another top investment firm. The round managed to raise $250 million and included other investors like Pantera Capital and Paradigm.
The company declared that it would use these resources to strengthen its core business in Latam and expand to other markets. Bitso is in a very comfortable position in Latam, where it is very popular in certain countries. While making inroads to Argentina during the last cryptocurrency boom in that country, Bitso is especially strong in its home country, Mexico, where it is looking to take a significant part of the business of remittances in the area.
How Bitso Got Here
Bitso, founded in 2014, has gone through a long and winding road to get here. The company carried its early founding round circa 2016, getting an early investment of $2.5 million by Digital Currency Group, the company that owns Coindesk and Grayscale Investments. Its next influx came in its Series A funding round, which raised $15 million during October 2019, followed by another influx of $62 million in December 2020, which was led by Kaszek Ventures and QED Investors.
Bitso also stamped a partnership with Ripple, the cryptocurrency company, that allowed them to leverage Ripple’s liquidity for doing quick remittances. This made Bitso is the biggest exchange partner of MoneyGram for Mexican pesos-based remittances. The advantage of Bitso is that the percentage of banking users in the region is very low, so this has allowed them to grow pretty fast, taking advantage of how cryptocurrency works and its cheap costs for remittances.
But Bitso is not only about remittances in Mexico. The exchange is focusing to expand its reach to other Latam countries, and it has been elected as one of the approved crypto companies to conduct tests in Colombia while also recently launching operations in Brazil.
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