eToro raises $100m Series E to fund blockchain effort

Global trading and investment platform eToro has today announced a Series E fundraise of $100m, led by China Minsheng Financial and supported by SBI Group, Korea Investment Partners and World Wide Invest among others.

The raise is set to support eToro’s expansion as it heads into new markets, and continued research and development of blockchain technology and digital assets. The round brings the platform’s total capital raised to $162m, following a signficant period of growth for the business driven in part by its foray into cryptocurrency investments.

eToro added Stellar as its eighth cryptocurrency asset listed on its Crypto Copyfund in February, joining fellow cryptos Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereuem and Ripple amongst others. The trader launched its Crypto Copyfund in July 2017, which uses CFDs to enable investors to diversify across all available cryptocurrencies (weighted by market cap) with just one click.

Commenting on the fundraise, Yoni Assia, CEO and founder of eToro, said: “eToro was built with the vision of democratizing financial markets by making trading and investing accessible to all. Since launching, we’ve seen strong customer demand for our approach and today’s announcement is an important milestone in marking the success that we’ve had and signalling a new period of growth and expansion for our business.

“This round of investment will be critical in helping us to further develop our technology infrastructure to support the rapid growth that we’ve recently experienced. It will also help us to enter new markets, enabling us to bring our social approach to investing to more people around the world, and providing more people with safe and secure access to the markets.

Founded in 2007, eToro now manages a community of more than 9m users, receiving over $1bn in customer deposits in 2017. It also saw more than 1m new registrations in Q4 alone, likely also to be the result of its Crypto Copyfund’s success.