Analysis: Bitpanda is now playing in the top league of the global crypto industry
3.5 billion euros – with this rating, Bitpanda is not only one of the most valuable companies in Austria, but has also placed itself (almost) at the top of those growth companies worldwide that have been endowed with enormous sums of money this year. If you ignore the two newcomers to the stock exchange Coinbase (approx. 67 billion dollars) and Robinhood (41% of sales come from crypto, market cap at 35 billion dollars) and the large exchange operators like Binance, there are hardly any companies that come close to Bitpanda.
Based on the financing rounds of 2021, which also caused an unprecedented glut of money in the crypto industry, Bitpanda is in second place with a total of 443 million dollars (Series C: 263 million / Series B: 180 million dollars). Not even the US stock market candidate and stablecoin maker Circle or Blockchain.com from Great Britain have raised as much venture capital so far – even if Circle could receive up to 690 million dollars in the fourth quarter as part of a SPAC.
Bitpanda also plays in the top league internationally when it comes to ratings. FTX.com, one of Binance’s big challengers, is already at 18 billion, and Bullish Global is looking for a stock market valuation of 9 billion dollars – but that is followed by Blockchain.com (5.2 billion dollars), Chainalysis (4.2 billion dollars) Billion dollars and Bitpanda (4.2 billion dollars). The table shows the ranking at a glance:
The largest financing rounds for crypto companies in 2021:
| Investment | valuation | Investors | Vertical | origin | |
| FTX.com | $ 900 million | $ 18 billion | Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, Thoma Bravo, SoftBank, Ribbit Capital, Insight Partners, Third Point, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Altimeter, BOND, NEA, Coinbase Ventures, Willoughby Capital, 40North, Senator Investment Group, Sino Global Capital, Multicoin, VanEck, Hudson River Trading, Circle | Exchange | Hong Kong / Antigua & Barbuda |
| Bitpanda | $ 443 million (Series C: 263, Series B: 180) |
$ 4.1 billion | Valar Ventures, partner of DST Global | Neobroker | Vienna, AUT |
| Circle | $ 440 million | $ 4.5 billion | Digital Currency Group, Fidelity Management, FTX | Stablecoins | Boston, USA |
| Blockchain.com | $ 420 million (Series B: 120, Series C: 300) |
$ 5.2 billion | DST Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners, VY Capital, Google Ventures | Crypto wallet | London, UK |
| Ledger | $ 380 million | $ 1.5 billion | 10T Holdings, Cathay Innovation, Draper Esprit, Draper Associates, Draper Dragon, DCG, Korelya Capital, Wicklow Capital | Crypto Wallet (Hardware) | Paris, France |
| BlockFi | $ 350 million | $ 3 billion | Valar Ventures, Galaxy Digital, Fidelity, Akuna Capital, SoFi, Coinbase Ventures | Crypto Lending | New York, USA |
| Solana Labs | $ 314 million | tba. | Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, Alameda Research, Blockchange Ventures, CMS Holdings, Coinfund, CoinShares, Collab Currency, Memetic Capital | Blockchain | San Francisco, USA |
| Fireblocks | $ 310 million | $ 2.2 billion | Sequoia Capital, Stripes, Spark Capital, Coatue, DRW VC, SCB 10X | Infrastructure | New York, USA |
| Dapper Labs | $ 305 million | $ 2.6 billion | Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Michael Jordan, Kevin Durant, Ashton Kutcher, Shawn Mendes, Will Smith | NFT | Vancouver, Canada |
| Bullish | 300 million dollars (+ crypto assets) |
9 billion dollars | Peter Thiel (Thiel Capital and Founders Fund), Alan Howard, Louis Bacon (Moore Capital), Richard Li (Pacific Century Group), Christian Angermayer (Apeiron Investment Group, Cryptology Asset Group), Galaxy Digital, Nomura | Exchange | tba. |
| Paxos | $ 300 million | $ 2.4 billion | Oak HC / FT Declaration Partners, PayPal Ventures, Mithril Capital, Senator Investment Group, Liberty City Ventures, WestCap, Bank of America, Founders Fund, Coinbase Ventures, FTX | Blockchain Infra | New York, USA |
| Bitso | $ 250 million | $ 2.2 billion | Tiger Global, Coatue, Paradigm, BOND, Valor Capital Group, QED, Pantera Capital, Kaszek | Exchange | Mexico City, MEX |
| BitDAO | $ 230 million (+ crypto assets) | tba. | Peter Thiel, Founders Fund, Dragonfly Capital, Pantera Capital, Alan Howard (Spartan Group), Jump Capital, Fenbushi or Kain Warwick (Synthetix) | DeFi | tba. |
| Figure Technologies | $ 200 million | $ 3.2 billion | Morgan Creek Capital, 10T Holdings, Digital Currency Group, Digital Capital Mgt, DST Global | Mortgage | San Francisco, USA |
| Forte | $ 185 million | $ 1 billion | Griffin Gaming Partners | Gaming | San Francisco, USA |
| helium | $ 111 million | tba. | Andreessen Horowitz, Alameda Research, Ribbit Capital, 10T Holdings, and Multicoin Capital | Decentralized Wireless Network | San Francisco, USA |
| TaxBit | $ 100 million | $ 1.5 billion | Insight Partners | Crypto Tax Service | Salt Lake City, USA |
| Matrix port | $ 100 million | $ 1 billion | DST Global, C Ventures, K3 Ventures, Tiger Global, Qiming Ventures Partners, IDG Capital, Dragonfly Capital | Neobank | Singapore |
| Amber Group | $ 100 million | $ 1 billion | China Renaissance Group, Tiger Brokers, Tiger Global Management, Arena Holdings, Tru Arrow Partners, A&T Capital, Sky9 Capital, DCM Ventures, Gobi Partners, Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Blockchain.com | Crypto gateway | Hong Kong, HK |
| OpenSea | $ 100 million | $ 1.5 billion | Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Michael Ovitz, Kevin Hartz, Dylan Field, Kevin Durant, Ashton Kutcher, Tobi Lutke | NFT marketplace | New York, USA |
| Chainalysis | $ 100 million | $ 4.2 billion | Coatue, 9Yards Capital, Benchmark, Accel, Addition, Dragoneer, Durable Capital Partners, Altimeter, Blackstone, GIC, Pictet, Sequoia Heritage, SVB Capital | Blockchain Analytics | New York, USA |
| ConsenSys | $ 65 million | tba. | JP Morgan, Mastercard, UBS, Protocol Labs (Filecoin), Maker Foundation (MakerDAO), Fenbushi, The LAO and Alameda Research | Ethereum Infra | New York, USA |
The interesting thing about Bitpanda is that the Viennese company with more than three million users and more than 500 employees still has enormous growth potential. The three founders Paul Klanschek, Eric Demuth and Christian Trummer jointly hold more than 50 percent of the company, which leaves room for further large financing rounds. In addition, according to Bitpanda CEO Eric Demuth, the company has been consistently profitable for 5 years and can thus use the risk capital mainly for expansion from a stable business base.
In the past week, Bitpanda described many a critical voice as a simple exchange office between Fiat and bitcoin. Crypto trading is certainly the main business, but ignores what else is in the company. Here is an overview of the business areas:
1. Crypto brokerage:
Coinbase has 56 million users, Robinhood 21 million users – and Bitpanda only three million? At first glance this is not much, but at second glance it should not be underestimated. Because Bitpanda needed less than half a year to grow from 2 to three million users (+50 percent). If this continues in this way (and now there is a lot of marketing budget), then the ten million users in the next two years are realistic.
With a range of more than 60 crypto assets (and the number is constantly increasing), Bitpanda is already the number one contact point for many Central Europeans to buy Bitcoin and Co. In the medium term, the question arises whether Bitpanda has to assert itself against Revolut or the stock exchange giant PayPal, which are also expanding their crypto offerings in Europe. A battle for users over trading fees could ensue here. They are comparatively high at Bitpanda.
2. Stocks & ETFs:
Bitpanda’s clear goal is to become “Number 1 among investment platforms in Europe”. The range of stocks and ETFs at the Neobroker is still manageable, at Trade Republic the selection is much larger. But here, too, the offer is constantly being expanded, and Bitpanda is also going its own way.
Because the stocks and ETFs are actually derivative products that Bitpanda implements with partner BNP Paribas. This enables two things: Users can buy partial shares, for example, 24/7. At the competing Neobroker Trade Republic, for example, you can only trade whole shares, so you need more than 580 euros to get into Tesla, for example. At Bitpanda, on the other hand, you can buy Tesla shares for as little as one euro – this suits young people with little money.
3. Exchange business:
In terms of trading volume, it is in 87th place of all around 400 crypto exchanges worldwide. Bitpanda Pro is of course much smaller than Binance, Coinbase Pro or FTX.com, but not to be underestimated. The reported trading volume per day in 2021 fluctuated between roughly 4 and 30 million euros – heavily depending on the mood on the crypto market.
While some crypto exchanges, especially Binance, are currently having to gradually reduce their offerings in order to meet the requirements of the regulatory authorities, Bitpanda (concession as an investment company) is operating from a stable situation. It is quite conceivable that (institutional) users in Europe in particular will increasingly turn to exchanges offered by regulated companies and keep their hands off Binance and Co.
4. B2B software:
Bitpanda has to be seen more and more as a software company. A new white label solution has recently been offered to other companies that also want to give their customers access to partial shares, ETFs, cryptocurrencies and precious metals. Neobanks, FinTechs, traditional banks, robo-advisors or online platforms come into question as customers. According to Bitpanda CEO Eric Demuth, three companies from Spain, Italy and France are already customers.
