This company will attempt to “roll up” the cryptocurrency space in 2022…

Early stage company MoonPay just announced a massive venture funding round that will have big implications for the industry. MoonPay is a company focused on making it easy for consumers to purchase cryptocurrencies using traditional payment methods like debit and credit cards. It removes the complexity and makes it simple to buy crypto. The company also allows consumers to make everyday purchases using debit and credit cards backed by their digital assets. 

In this way, consumers can both buy and spend cryptocurrencies using just one company’s services.  Its raise was an interesting one. The company had bootstrapped itself since 2018 and made it to profitability. It never raised a formal institutional round until now. It’s being called a Series A round, but at an incredible $555 million raise – and a $3.4 billion valuation – it feels like a late-stage round.  

MoonPay went from zero to unicorn status in just one venture funding round. That doesn’t happen very often. And this demonstrates how much demand there is in the cryptocurrency market right now.  And there were some smart investors in the round like New Enterprise Associates, Coatue, and Tiger Global. They clearly see explosive growth ahead – otherwise they wouldn’t have invested at these levels.  

Of course, this begs the question… Why did MoonPay raise so much money if it doesn’t need it? The company was very transparent. MoonPay will use the capital to acquire other businesses in the space. It will use this approach to aggressively grow its own business and “roll up” the industry in the process. That’s a strategy to become dominant quickly. With over half a billion dollars earmarked for acquisitions, we’ll certainly see some interesting things happen in the next 12 months.