Bitso reportedly becomes Latin America’s first billion-dollar crypto exchange

Mexican cryptocurrency exchange Bitso has concluded a $250 million Series C capital raise, putting it in the upper echelons of Latin America’s fintech industry. 

The latest investment round gives Bitso a total value of $2.2 billion, making it the first Latin American cryptocurrency exchange to be worth over $1 billion. It’s also the third-most valuable fintech company on the continent.

The raise was led by Tiger Global and Coatue, with additional contributions from Valor Capital Group, Bond and Paradigm.

Daniel Vogel, Bitso’s co-founder and CEO, said it took the exchange six years to get its first million customers and less than 10 months to reach 2 million. As Cointelegraph previously reported, Bitso registered its one-millionth user in July 2020.

“People in Latin America are using this technology in their everyday lives,” Vogel said, referring to the cryptocurrency exchange. “We are proud to grow with the industry and continue to make these powerful financial enablers available to everyone.”

He explained that the latest investment round will be used to grow company capabilities as the exchange continues to expand its regional operations:

“Last week we launched operations in Brazil. This round will be used to expand our capabilities, our product offering, and to continue to make cryptocurrencies useful throughout Latin America.”

Launched in 2014, Bitso offers cryptocurrency exchange services settled in Mexican pesos. The platform processes deposits and withdrawals using the Ripple payment gateway and is available in both desktop and mobile versions.

The Series C fundraiser follows a successful Series B raise in December 2020 that brought in $62 million from various investment funds, including Kaszek Ventures and QED Investors. At the time, Vogel said the funds would be used to further expand company capabilities across Latin America.

Argentina was one of Bitso’s first expansion targets in 2019 after the company deployed investment funds obtained from a Ripple-led capital raise. It took the exchange just six months to become Argentina’s most popular Bitcoin (BTC) trading platform.

Crypto is flourishing in Argentina as locals cope with a crumbling economy, high fiscal pressure and the sharp devaluation of the Argentine peso. Capital controls during the pandemic also hastened Bitcoin adoption as more people sought to navigate around a troubled banking system.