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MoonPay, a cryptocurrency payment services provider, raised a whopping $555 million in Series A funding, the company announced on Monday. This brings the Miami-based startup to a post-money valuation of $3.4 billion, according to a press release.
According to a blog post from MoonPay, this is the largest Series A funding round ever for any crypto company globally.
The fresh capital will go towards expanding staff, scaling up MoonPay’s crypto payment solutions and its efforts to drive mainstream adoption of the digital asset class at-large, according to co-founder and CEO Ivan Soto-Wright.
“We set out to democratize access to the crypto economy by providing the tools for businesses to onboard new users,” Soto-Wright said. “We are on a mission to help billions of people access trillions of dollars of digital value over the next decade and beyond.”
Led by Tiger Global Management and Coatue, other participants in the financing round include Paradigm, Blossom Capital, Thrive Capital and NEA.
“Crypto is growing rapidly, but bringing aboard the next billion people requires services that make it even easier to access,” Matt Huang, co-founder of Paradigm, said in a statement. “MoonPay has built a simple and secure way for people globally to participate in this new economy.”
MoonPay allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using bank cards and mobile wallets. The company made headlines earlier this month for its feature on artists Post Malone and The Weeknd’s music video. “One Right Now” has racked up over 12 million views and features Malone buying a non-fungible token (NFT) via MoonPay’s platform. (Malone owns two Bored Apes, which he purchased for a combined $734,401 or 160 ether.)
Founded in 2019, the company has onboarded a slew of other celebrities into the crypto world, including Jimmy Fallon. Fallon announced that he used the startup’s service to buy his first NFT, describing “MoonPay [as] like PayPal, but for crypto.”
“This historic financing round is a vote of confidence for what we’re doing and where we’re headed next. It’s proof that people believe in our ability to bring the next billion people to crypto, a way station to our final destination: the moon,” wrote Soto-Wright in a blog post.
MoonPay has processed more than $2 billion in transactions and accumulated over 7 million users.
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