South African cryptocurrency exchange, VALR has raised $50 million in its Series B funding round, raising the company’s valuation to $240 million, more than 10 times its valuation in July 2020 when it raised $3.4 million in its Series A funding round.
Investors who took part in the company’s oversubscribed Series B funding include Pantera Capital, Alameda Research, Cadenza, CMT Digital, Coinbase Ventures, Distributed Global, GSR, Third Prime, Avon Ventures, Bittrex, and 4Di Capital.
VALR says it will use the funding primarily to expand across Africa and into other emerging markets such as India, and to bring more products and services to its growing base of global customers. The startup is also hiring extensively across all areas of its team.
Further, it plans to bring on more institutions from the traditional financial system to help it with the infrastructure needed to enter the crypto asset market.
Launched in 2019, VALR is a digital asset platform that allows customers to buy, sell, store and transfer Bitcoin and 60 other cryptocurrencies – the widest selection of any platform in Africa – seamlessly and securely. It has so far processed over US$7.5 billion in trading volume, and serves over 250,000 retail customers and 500 institutional clients from across the world.
