blockchain
Blockchain is the next big thing in digital assets and the platform's adoption continues to spread across industries. Pixabay/ Tumisu

Social trading company eToro has raised US$100 million (AU$130 million) to support its expansion into new markets, such as the cryptocurrency market. The funding, which will also benefit its continued research and development of blockchain technology and the digitisation of assets, brings the total capital raised to US$162 million (AU$211 million).

Yoni Assia, CEO and founder of eToro, said the investment will be critical in helping the firm further develop its technology infrastructure. With the US$100 million funding, they can enter new markets and reach out to more people about investing.

“On top of this, as new technology continues to change finance, we want to remain at the forefront of that change. So today’s announcement will help us to continue our market leading work in blockchain research and the development of digital assets,” Assia said in a statement.

The recent round of funding was participated in by SBI Group, Korea Investment Partners, the World Wide Investment Company Limited among others. It was led by China Minsheng Financial.

The investment company received over US$1 billion (AU$1.3 billion) in customer deposits and over one million new registrations in the Q4 of 2017. This allowed the company to expand into businesses globally. It now boasts over 9 million users around the world.

Last year, it expanded its cryptocurrency trading by adding Ethereum to its platform. It also added bitcoin in 2014 even before its popularity soared. In 2017, eToro announced plans to launch a pilot blockchain wallet for clients. The deployment of multi-use blockchain would enable users to see all their cryptocurrency on the blockchain.

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