Crypto lending firm Celsius Network has expanded its Series B round from $ 400 million since October to $ 750 million as a result of the oversubscription in the company's capital increase.
The company is now valued at $ 3.5 billion following the raise, and CEO Alex Mashinsky told Cointelegraph that he expects that figure to "double or triple" next year, which would value it between $ 7 billion and $ 10.5 billion. millions.
The firm previously closed the round on October 12 amid a period of intense scrutiny placed about crypto loan companies from local regulators. Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky He emphasized at the time that โit is not 400 million dollars. It's the credibility that comes with the people who wrote those checks. "
In an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Nov.25, Celsius outlined that the new funds will go toward expanding into new markets and product offerings, along with building its recent Announced Bridge project from centralized financing (CeFi) to decentralized financing (DeFi) โCelsiusXโ.
Celsius will also allocate funds to enhance its "platform utility" and its commitment to sustainable Bitcoin (BTC) mining.
Speaking about the $ 750 million funding round with Cointelegraph, Mashinsky said the fact that the round was oversubscribed shows a "very good indication" of the strength of the Celsius brand, which he said was focused on the Username.
โIf you think about what we do, which is pay the return to the community, you know, we pay more than $ 1 billion to our community and we basically get that return from exchanges and institutions. And most of our competitors [...] they collect fees from clients and give all that money to their shareholders, โhe said.
Celsisus summarized plans earlier this week to invest an additional $ 300 million in scaling up its BTC mining operations in North America, taking its total spend in the sector to $ 500 million.
Mashinsky attributed his bullish estimate of the value of Celsius in 2022 to the company's ability to provide services in almost all sectors of crypto, as it highlighted the growth potential of the business:
โI think that by itself it is worth several times what we invest. So between that and the growth of our core business, you know, the performance business, the loan business or the mining business, the DeFi business, all of these things are obviously huge. "
The Celsius CEO also noted the $ 115 million acquisition of crypto custody platform GK8 in the start this month, and revealed that the company has plans to enter the NFT sector in the near future, although it will not launch a market as it believes there are already too many similar platforms.
"We think we can help expand the category to other use cases or other ways to, you know, unlock value for brands," he said.
Related: Cryptocurrency lending companies in the dock: are new regulations looming?
Questioned about the company's $ 20 million crowdfunding round since August 2020, in which more than 1,000 investors from the Celsius community endorsed the firm. Mashinsky said the company was valued at around $ 150 million at the time, and while investors are currently unable to sell their holdings, it has turned out to be a good investment for them:
โBasically those 1000 people earned on average, what is it, 25 times of their money or something like that? Obviously it's not liquid, they can't sell it tomorrow. But we think they are super happy. "
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