RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Japan’s SoftBank Group has invested US$200 million in Mercado Bitcoin, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Latin America, said Roberto Dagnoni, executive chairman and chief executive officer of 2TM Group, the trading platform’s parent company.
The investment, raised in a Series B funding round, was made through SoftBank Latin America Fund and represents the Japanese multinational company’s largest investment in a Latin American crypto company. As a result of the investment, 2TM said its valuation reached US$2.1 billion.
Currently Mercado Bitcoin offers support to 2.2 million operators and is he estimates that after the expansion it will serve about three million traders. In 2020 the company reached a total volume of operations of R$6.4 billion or about US$1.17 billion.
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The SoftBank capital raise comes at a time when investor sentiment on cryptocurrencies has soured amid regulatory crackdowns in China, Britain, and Japan. That has led to outflows from crypto investment products and funds the last few weeks.
Dagnoni, however, was unfazed by the current slump in cryptocurrencies.
“We are strong believers in the fundamentals of crypto,” Dagnoni told Reuters in a phone interview.
Mercado Bitcoin will use the funds to scale its operations, expand offerings, and invest in infrastructure to meet the rising demand for crypto in the region, 2TM said in a statement.
“The platform is quite integrated. So custody is very important in releasing the power of the institutional market,” Dagnoni said in the interview.
“We’re also looking at regional expansions in Latam and expansions via M&A (mergers and acquisitions) as well,” he added.
Mercado Bitcoin, which launched in 2013, has grown significantly over the past year, with its client base reaching 2.8 million in 2021, more than 70% of the entire individual investor base in Brazil’s stock exchange, 2TM said.
Between January and May 2021, approximately 700,000 new customers signed up to use Mercado Bitcoin’s services, the company said. During the first five months of the year, trade volume at the crypto exchange also increased to US$5 billion, surpassing the total for its first seven years combined.
Based in São Paulo, Mercado Bitcoin company is the first to perform Bitcoin transactions in Latin America and to provide ATM for cryptocurrency withdrawals in Brazil.
The company also acts as a source of quote information for the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ether (Ethereum) and XRP (Ripple) for financial platforms such as Agência Estado’s Broadcast, Economática, CMA and Comdinheiro.
LATIN AMERICA EXPANSION IN 2021
The Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange Mercado Bitcoin announced on January 21 that it is preparing an expansion in Latin America that targets the markets of Chile, Mexico and Argentina. Operations in these countries could begin in 2021 after attracting investments of about US$37 (R$200) million.
Bitcoin Market is one of the main cryptocurrency exchange houses in Latin America, by its volume of sales. In the past, the company has faced difficulties due to the closure of accounts by banks that it has accused of anticompetitive conduct, according to CriptoNoticias
With information from Reuters