Confirming our earlier post on the matter, retail forex broker eToro has successfully raised $27 million from units of China’s Ping An and Russia’s Sberbank. Current investors Spark Capital and BRM also participated in the financing. The round also includes a credit facility from Silicon Valley Bank.
Industry sources tell LeapRate that the financing was done at a valuation well north of $100 million for eToro.
The financing seems to be a strategic one, with both Ping An and Sberbank to help eToro expand in their respective home markets, China and Russia, following the investment.
Yoni Assia, CEO and Co-Founder of eToro stated:
We’re very excited to have two of the largest financial institutions in the world join our company as partners. We look forward to leveraging their deep industry knowledge and expertise with our disruptive vision and product. We share a vision to empower retail investors all over the world to trade and invest in a social and transparent way, and we’re proud to partner with 2 of the largest financial institutions in the world to lead this revolution.
eToro bills itself as ‘the world’s largest social investment network, with 4 million registered users in more than 140 countries, with thousands of new accounts opened each day.‘ The company clearly has good reasons to make these claims. Among the retail forex sector firms, eToro is clearly a leader and innovator when it comes to use of social media. eToro was one of the first brokers to introduce social networking among its clients, via its proprietary OpenBook.
And outside its own network, eToro is also a leader in utilizing outside social platforms.
- Facebook – more than 900,000 likes
- Twitter – more than 60,000 followers
- Alexa – rank 3,700, lowest among all retail forex brokers
The eToro press release on the financing can be seen here.