Four-five months after Israeli company eToro, which has developed a financial social network, announced a $27 million investment round, today the company announced that the round is being expanded to $39 million. The round has been joined by CommerzVentures GmbH, the Corporate Venture Capital subsidiary of Commerzbank launched approximately six months ago, which is making first investment in a fintech company. It joins the venture arms of Sberbank and Ping An as a follower investor in eToro's Series D financing.
Previous investors in eToro Spark Capital and the Barkat brothers' BRM also participated in the current round, which includes a credit line of $10 million by Silicon Valley Bank. Altogether, eToro has raised $70 million. The company is currently in the process of recruiting dozens of new employees.
eToro Group Ltd., which was selected in 2013 by "Globes" as one of Israel's most promising start-ups, was founded in 2007 by brothers Yoni and Ronen Assia and David Ring with the vision of developing a platform that would open the financial markets to everyone by simplifying the user’s experience. eToro then developed a contracts for difference (“CFD”) trading platform, which was launched in 2008. Following the rise of popular social networks, the company decided to launch its own social investing platform called “OpenBook” in 2010. The aim of social trading is to promote transparency by allowing traders from all across the globe to copy and learn from one another. To date, eToro has over 4 million registered users and offers hundreds of CFDs on currencies, stocks, indices, and commodities.
"At CommerzVentures we want to work with the best entrepreneurs who can articulate why they can dominate a given market segment. eToro is a perfect fit as it has firmly established itself as the leader in social trading and as it is run by ambitious and very talented management,“said Stefan Tirtey, co-managing director of CommerzVentures.
eToro co-founder and CEO Yoni Assia said, "These are truly exciting times for us at eToro as new partners begin to share our vision of recreating personal finance. The new funds raised will help us scale globally and grow faster than ever before. With new offices opened and others soon to follow, we will continue to dominate the field of social trading. Later this year, we are planning to introduce a completely new platform alongside our revamped Popular Investors program. The program gives traders the opportunity to earn a monthly income from trading and being copied by others on our platform."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 20, 2015
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