US-headquartered online share trading service eToro agreed yesterday to a reverse takeover that will score an exit for insurance group Ping An and financial services firms Sberbank and Commerzbank.
The company is merging with FinTech Acquisition Corp V, a special purpose acquisition company that floated on the Nasdaq Capital Market in a $218m initial public offering in December 2020, and will take its stock market listing in the process.
The deal valued eToro at almost $9.5bn and will give the combined company an estimated implied equity value of about $10.4bn. It will be boosted by a $650m private placement featuring telecommunications and internet conglomerate SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2.
Investment and financial services group Fidelity is also part of the placement, as are Ion Investment Group, Third Point and Wellington Management.
Founded in 2007, eToro runs an online platform with 20 million registered users who can trade in shares, exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrencies. The purported valuation is more than four times the $2.5bn valuation at which a US institutional investor bought $50m of shares in May 2019.
The company last disclosed primary funding the previous year, raising $100m in a round led by asset manager China Minsheng Financial and backed by financial services provider SBI Group, Korea Investment Partners and World Wide Invest at an $800m valuation.
The 2018 round increased eToro’s overall funding to $162m and followed a $39m series C round featuring Commerzbank unit CommerzVentures, Ping An subsidiary Ping An Ventures, Sberbank’s SBT Venture Capital vehicle, Spark Capital, BRM Group and Silicon Valley Bank that closed in 2015.
Spark Capital and BRM were existing investors, and eToro’s earlier backers include Cubit Investments, Social Leverage, Venture51 and angel investors including Guy Gamzu and Jonathan Kolber.
