MoonPay CEO and co-founder Ivan Soto-Wright spoke at the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, Florida.
Eva Marie Uscategi Bloomberg | Getty Images
What do Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, Snoop Dogg and Ashton Kutcher have in common? In addition to being celebrities on the A list, they are among more than 60 new investors in the fintech startup MoonPay.
Additional notable investors include Chainsmokers, Drake, Eva Longoria, Jason Derulo, Kate Hudson, Paris Hilton, Matthew McConaughey, Mindy Kaling, Questlav and Sean Mendes, among others. New investors are bringing in a collective $ 87 million for a pre-announced $ 555 million funding round led by Tiger Global and Coatue, valuing MoonPay at $ 3.4 billion.
Founded in 2018, the Miami-based software allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using conventional payment methods such as credit cards, bank transfers or mobile wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
MoonPay also sells its technology to other businesses, including the crypto website Bitcoin.com and the irreplaceable token (NFT) market OpenSea, a model CEO Ivan Soto-Wright called “crypto-like service.”
NFTs are digital assets that represent real-world objects – such as art, music and real estate – and cannot be replicated. In the last few months alone, major brands in every industry, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Nike, Gucci and the National Football League, have included NFT in their marketing initiatives.
“Many companies can open a very small part of their circles, but we wanted to take significant scrutiny from these people because we want them to be part of that story and shape the product direction,” Soto-Wright told CNBC.
In particular, when it comes to artists, they do not want to travel forever, so they are increasingly diversifying, he said.
“Many of them have venture capital portfolios, many of them have their own independent companies, and we got to them by telling them we can help you understand the possibilities around Web3, crypto and the metaverse,” Soto-Wright said. “We had virtually no rejections. Everyone wanted to be a part of it.”
MoonPay says it has been profitable since launching its platform in 2019. Its service is now used by more than 10 million customers in 160 countries.
However, investors are struggling to see value in digital art and are confused by big sales, such as the Beeple piece, which sold for $ 69 million at Christie’s.
Looking ahead, the company plans to spend the money raised on new products and expansion. He also has ambitions to bring the business to the public.
“We aspire to be a public company in the end,” Soto-Wright told CNBC in November.
However, cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and this has affected even the most famous players in the space. Bitcoin fell below $ 40,000 earlier this week for the first time since mid-March.
– on CNBC Ryan Brown contributed to this report.