South African crypto exchange VALR has raised $50 million in a Series B equity funding round, marking the largest funding ever for an African crypto exchange.
With this latest funding round, VALR's valuation has risen to $240 million, a 10x growth since it raised $3.4 million in a Series A round in July 2020. This round was led by VC Pantera Capital, Alameda Research , Coinbase Ventures and several others
VALR claims to have processed over $7.5 billion in trading volume since 2019 from over 250,000 retail clients and 500 global institutional users. It currently has around 420 BTC ($18 million) in trading volume from 69 trading pairs according to CoinMarketCap.
Funds from this round will be used to expand VALR's operations to other emerging African markets and India, introduce more products to its users, and recruit more talent.
VALR CEO and co-founder Farzam Ehsani said in an official statement on March 1 shared with Cointelegraph that “the financial tools of society should unite us, not divide us.” He added:
“VALR is helping to build a financial system that recognizes the oneness of the human race. There is no longer any doubt about the impact that crypto assets are having on our global financial system."
Ehsani also hopes to inflate the number of institutional clients, such as banks and insurance providers, using VALR's platform to provide crypto infrastructure they may need in the future. Eshani said:
“Crypto assets will be increasingly central to all of our lives. VALR is here to help our clients move from the old financial system to the new one.”
Related: Crypto Firms Ignore Africa at Peril as Continent Gears Up for Major Adoption
Despite a turbulent crypto market until 2022 so far, investments in crypto projects have not slowed down. On February 27, the The South Korean government announced a $187 million pledge to build a national metaverse, and The Graph (GRT) opened a $205 million fund on February 17 designed to attract developers to its platform.
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