Coinsquare Raises $30 Million and Plans 100 New Hires Over the Next Six Months
Digital currency may have hit the rails recently, but one Canadian exchange is finding its stride.
Coinsquare has announced that they close a $30 million fully marketed equity financing round led by Canaccord Genuity Corp. Including this recent funding, the Toronto-based company has raised more than $47 million over the past four months. Coinsquare has had a lot of financial news as they also announced in late January that they were looking to target a $150 million IPO.
The new funding will go towards fuelling a global growth plan and diversification strategy that will look to make Coinsquare platform even more responsive. Right now, the company employs 90 staff, but is looking to expand to over 200 total employees by the end of their 2018 second quarter.
“We have seen tremendous investor confidence in the Coinsquare business model, having raised a total of $47.3 million in just over four months–notable for this industry,” said Cole Diamond, CEO of Coinsquare. “We take a very different view than your typical digital currency trading platform. Virgile Rostand, Coinsquare’s Founder, was an early industry pioneer and blue-chip banking industry veteran. He built a custom platform that is unrivaled in Canada, boasting extremely high-security standards.”
Coinsquare is a currently private company founded in 2015 that acts as a trading platform for Canadians to buy, sell and trade digital currency like bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin. They boast more than 100,000 customers and focus on being secure and easy to use. Coinsquare is the second largest digital currency platform in Canada, trailing only QuadrigaCX.
Beyond the new capital raised, Coinsquare announced new additions to their team that will help strengthen both the financial and tech sides of the business. Ken Tsang joins as the new CFO after working at BMO as a VP in the office of strategic management. Robert Mueller is Coinsquare’s new COO, coming from Tulip Retail. He was the VP of finance and helped to raise Tulip’s recent $50 million financing round.
Finally, Lewis Bateman is the new CBO for Coinsquare, an investor with experience at Bateman Capital and Whitetail Capital.
Beyond hiring and expanding the platform, Coinsquare will look into high-growth opportunities in the digital currency space like mining; the launch of CoinCaps Fund, a financing amount focused on investments in the digital currency landscape; and a trading and arbitrage division that will take advantage of cross exchange opportunities.
Coinsquare eventually wants to leverage its tech platform and license its offering to countries across the world in a vein to make sure every nation has its own digital currency platform.