CommerzVentures invests into social investing company eToro Group
- First investment of CommerzVentures
- CommerzVentures joins existing investors in a Series D financing
CommerzVentures GmbH, the Corporate Venture Capital subsidiary of Commerzbank launched around six months ago, has made its first investment in a fintech company. It joined the venture arms of Sberbank and Ping An as a follower investor in the Series D financing of the social investment platform eToro Group Ltd. The total investment volume raised among the investors amounted to USD 39 million. This includes a credit line of USD 10 million by Silicon Valley Bank.
Since the launch of CommerzVentures in the first quarter of 2014, the team has met far more than one hundred entrepreneurs and companies. „We aim at further improving Commerzbank’s ability to access innovations and trends in the financial sector. We have examined quite a number of interesting companies during the past months. Their potential alone shows that we are on the right track,“ said Bettina Orlopp, Member of the Divisional Board for Group Development & Strategy at Commerzbank and member of the CommerzVentures investment committee.
eToro Group Ltd. was founded in 2007 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.
Yoni Assia, eToro’s co-founder and CEO 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.”
Source: COMMERZBANK – CommerzVentures invests into social investing company eToro Group
