London-based Mercuryo, a fintech company focused on providing cryptocurrency payment solutions, announced that it has raised $7.5M (approx €6.3M) in its Series A round of funding. With this round, the company has now raised a total capital of over $10M (approx €8.4M), to date.
Investors
The Series A round was led by a pan-European VC firm Target Global with participation from a group of angel investors.
Speaking about the company, Mike Lobanov, Target Global’s co-founder, says, “As an experiment, we tested numerous solutions to buy Bitcoin. Doing our diligence, we measured ‘time to crypto’ – how long it takes from going to the App Store and downloading the app until the digital assets arrive in the wallet. Mercuryo came first with 6 minutes, including everything from KYC and funding to getting the cryptocurrency. On the other hand, the second-best result was 20 minutes, while some apps took forever to process our transaction. This company is a game-changer in the field, and we are delighted to have been their supporters since the early days.”
Cryptocurrency payment solutions
Founded in 2018 by Alexander Vasiliev, Greg Waisman, and Petr Kozyakov, Mercuryo is a cross-border payments network that enables businesses to send and receive payments for goods and services using cryptocurrencies.
As for the banking sector, Mercuryo offers its customers fintech crypto SaaS solutions, allowing them to buy crypto via their fiat accounts while assigning digital asset management to the team. Be it virtual accounts or third-party customer wallets, the company handles most cryptocurrency-related processes for banks, so they can focus more on their core operations.
Petr Kozyakov, Mercuryo’s co-founder and CEO, says, “The need for fast and efficient international payments, especially for businesses, is as relevant as ever. There’s no lack of companies working in this direction, but we take a slightly different approach. We’re using cryptocurrencies as a tool for putting in motion next-gen cross-border transfers. Our team has a clear plan on making crypto universally available by enabling cheap and straightforward transactions. Cryptocurrency assets can then be used to process global money transfers, mass payouts, facilitate acquiring services, and much more.”
He further adds, “We’re even cooperating with banks so that their customers can start buying crypto with fiat. Thanks to the new Series A round, we got an opportunity to gain more key partners and release new products and services faster.”
Mercuryo’s products include: a multicurrency wallet with a built-in crypto exchange and digital asset purchasing functionality, a widget, and high-volume cryptocurrency acquiring and OTC services.
Additionally, the company states that there’s another product coming soon is the gig economy solution that allows businesses to send instant mass payments to multiple customers and gig workers simultaneously, regardless of the receivers’ locations.
Currently, the company employees over 110 staff members in the team.
How will the funds be utilised?
The capital from this round will be used by Mercuryo to execute its vision of becoming the go-to infrastructure for crypto-fiat on/off ramps.
A cryptocurrency on-ramp refers to an exchange or similar service where you can offer fiat money in return for cryptocurrency. While cryptocurrency off-ramps act as just the opposite of on-ramps. They are a way to convert your cryptocurrency into fiat, or possibly products and services.
Besides, Mercuryo is also planning to launch the cryptocurrency debit card (spending globally directly from the crypto balance in the wallet) and expand to new markets, such as LATAM and APAC countries.
Recent growth and developments
With plans to scale up globally, the company closed a €2.5M in its Seed funding in 2020 led by international VC fund, Target Global.
In January 2021, Mercuryo expanded its services to 51 US states. And in February 2021, the team opened its headquarters in London, which now functions as the hub for its business operations.
Since onboarding its first customer in 2019, the company claims to have achieved massive growth. Currently, it has over 1 million customers including partnerships with well known crypto enterprises, such as Binance, Bitfinex, Trezor, Trust Wallet, Bithumb, Bybit, and over 200 market-makers.
In 2020 alone, Mercuryo’s turnover soared 50 times while run-rate turnover crossed $2.5B (approx €2.1B) in April 2021. The company’s Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in April has grown to over $50M (approx €42M). To support the growth, the team has started expanding to new markets, such as the USA and also has plans to gradually expand in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia.