Light the menorah and bake the gingerbread— however you holiday — it’s the time to be merry. And as the festive spirit dawns upon us, so is the fact that Europe might be the world’s biggest cryptocurrency economy now.
As blockchain technology allows you to build safe, efficient payment systems on common or shared infrastructure, there has been a paradigm shift as has been mentioned in the recent report from Atomico titled The state of European tech 2021. With the continent receiving over €870 billion in crypto in the past year, blockchain funding has been at an all-time high in Europe, boosted by a marked increase in institutional transactions which grew from $1.4 billion in July last year, to $46.3 billion in June 2021.
As we mark the final countdown in the crypto season this year, the UK has become the leading country in Europe for cryptocurrency transactions, with $170bn (£123bn) worth of deals. Tracing behind closely are France, Germany, Netherlands and Spain.
While France’s Sorare snapped up Europe’s largest ever crypto round, scooping up a whopping $680m in September and Austria-based Bitpanda and UK-based Genesis Digital Assets raised the monster-nine-figure rounds each, TFN brings you the lowdown on Europe’s blockchain heavyweights, the largest equity rounds raised this year.
Sorare
Founders: Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort
Founded year: 2018
Founded in: Paris
Funding: $739.4M
Created by football fans for football fans, the startup is on a mission to digitise the long-standing tradition of trading football cards amongst peers and become ‘the game within the game’. The startup sold a unique Cristiano Ronaldo token for $289,920 in March this year.
This one takes the biggest share of the pie when it comes to funding. The blockchain-based fantasy football game, raised a gargantuan $680m Series B round led by SoftBank, valuing the three-year-old French company at $4.3bn. In the biggest Series B round in Europe to date, this is France’s biggest startup success. It has now signed up some 180 clubs — including Real Madrid, Arsenal and La Liga.
Genesis Digital Assets
Founders: Abdumalik Mirakhmedov, Andrey Kim, Marco Krohn, Marco Streng, Rashit Makhat
Founded year: 2013
Founded in: UK
Funding: $556M
One of the world’s largest and most experienced Bitcoin mining companies, Genesis Digital Assets has built over 20 industrial-scale mining farms, brought over 300,000 miners online, and mined over $1 billion in Bitcoin.
The platform is a self-mining business launched by the co-founders of Genesis Mining, which has been offering cloud mining services since its launch in 2013. In a mission to use the proceeds to fuel its hash rate expansion to hit the goal of having 1.4 gigawatts of energy capacity dedicated to bitcoin mining by 2023, it recently bought another 20,000 units of the newest generation of mining equipment from Canaan with an option to buy another bulk of huge 180,000 units from Canaan as part of the deal. The platform raised $431 million in fresh capital in a funding round led by crypto-focused investment firm Paradigm this September.
Ledger
Founders: Eric Larchevêque, Joel Pobeda, Nicolas Bacca, Thomas France
Founded year: 2014
Founded in: Paris
Funding: $468M
Launched in 2014, this French startup addresses the need to safeguard the big chunk of multiple cryptocurrencies while mitigating both IT and physical assault threats. Having designed a line of hardware security devices, Ledger offers products such as hardware wallet for cryptocurrency assets, a secure cryptocurrency management platform, Ledger Live, and a digital assets security solution for financial institutions, Ledger Enterprise Solutions.
The startup has raised a $380 million Series C funding round led by 10T Holdings to reach a valuation of $1.5 billion to enter the unicorn league this year.
Blockchain.com
Founders: Benjamin Reeves, Nicolas Cary, Peter Smith
Founded year: 2011
Founded in: London
Funding: $490M
Originally named Blockchain.info, Blockchain.com is offering ways to buy, hold and use cryptocurrency. In a mission to create a financial system for the internet that empowers anyone in the world to control their money, the platform has over 50 million customers. The fast and easy way to buy bitcoin, trade crypto, send, receive, secure and borrow digital currencies, the startup’ s explorer is one of the most trafficked websites in the world to find out what’s happening in the crypto markets.
The cryptocurrency wallet raised a $300 million Series C round in March this year that values the London-based company at $5.2 billion. With interest in bitcoin on the rise, the platform has witnessed a 300% increase in active users over the past 12 months. In a recent blog, CEO and founder Peter Smith said the company is highly profitable across each of our business lines.
Bitpanda
Founders: Christian Trummer, Eric Demuth, Paul Klansche
Founded year: 2014
Founded in: Vienna
Funding: $546M
The digital assets platform which facilitates the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies, Bitpanda became Austria’s first unicorn with its $263m funding round at a $4.1bn valuation in August. The most-valued startup in Austria removes complicated financial barriers by harnessing the innovative power of digitised assets and Blockchain technology.
Bitso
Founders: Ben Peters, Daniel Vogel, Pablo Gonzalez
Founded year: 2014
Founded in: Gibralter
Funding: $378.4M
The Latin America-focused exchange Bitso bought Quedex, a crypto derivatives trading platform, based and regulated in Gibraltar to mark its entry into the European crypto scene. The startup reached unicorn status after a funding round which ramped up raise $250m with the participation of some big names in the cryptocurrency world such as Tiger Global.
Ramp
Founders: Przemek Kowalczyk, Szymon Sypniewicz
Founded year: 2017
Founded in: London
Funding: $63.9M
Only six months after closing its seed round, Ramp raised €47 million this week. The London-based startup has created a payment infrastructure to make crypto more useful, open and hassle-free. The fresh funding is led by Balderton Capital with participation from existing investors NFX, Galaxy Digital, Seedcamp, Firstminute Capital, as well as angel investors including Taavet Hinrikus (Wise) and Francesco Simoneschi (TrueLayer).
The startup allows any brand or partner who wants to offer crypto-enabled services as part of their business model to do so easily and securely through the Ramp SDK. In a matter of hours, users can get up and running on the platform.
Bottlepay
Founders: Pete Cheyne, Peter O’Donoghue
Founded year: 2019
Founded in: Newcastle
Funding: $17.5M
The payments platform built on top of the bitcoin network, Bottlepay drives instant payments, including micropayments, in conventional currencies and Bitcoin. The platform’s open payment network is transforming the digital economy by making digital micropayments and cross-border transactions viable by reducing excessive fees. The system offers consumers and retailers access to a new global market, including 65 million Bitcoin owners.
The crypto payments network raised £11 million in a seed funding round backed by British fund manager Alan Howard, present and former Goldman Sachs partners, FinTech Collective and Nydig in February 2021.
