eToro RaiseS $100M USD In Series E Funding

Announcements, Blockchain, Investing | March 22, 2018 By:

Social trading network eToro has raised $100 million in a Series E financing round led China Minsheng Financial. Tokyo-based SBI Group and Korea Investment Partners also participated in the round.

eToro allows social trading and investments in a variety of financial assets, including cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies, indices, ETFs, and commodities. The company’s products, OpenBook and WebTrader, allow traders to learn from each other, share live trading information, and capitalize on their collective power. eToro was founded in 2007 and now has a community of over 9 million users.

eToro said the funding will be used to push into new markets and to fund research and development (R&D) on blockchain technology.

Yoni Assia, CEO and founder of eToro, said the company was built with the vision of democratizing financial markets by making trading and investing accessible to all.

“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,” said Assia. “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. On top of this, as new technology continues to change finance, we want to remain at the forefront of that change. So today’s announcement will help us to continue our market leading work in blockchain research and the development of digital assets.”

The latest funding brings the total capital raised by eToro to $162 million and follows a period of significant growth for the business driven, in part, by demand for investments in the cryptocurrency market.

Assia said that while cryptocurrencies are more “dangerous” and “volatile,” investors are turning to it because they expect higher returns.

“We see a great opportunity to build giant companies in the investment sector,” Assia said. “We have grown substantially in the last year, and we are very involved in the global trading market, and we believe that this is the right timing to develop more services and expand to additional geographies.”