Kraken Offers Shares at $4 Billion Valuation

Kraken, one of the biggest crypto exchange with 60% euro market share, is hoping to raise at least $10 million (0.255% equity) at a valuation of $4 billion with $6.7 million already raised at the time of writing from 285 investors.

The exchange says they have 780 employees and $155 million in revenue for 2018 with 56% operating margins.

They’re thus valuing themselves at 25x revenue and circa 50x profits presumably on the premise of future growth beyond their current 4 million customers and $85 billion in trading volumes for all of 2018.

Over the Counter (OTC) trading and Futures might be one growth area for the exchange which claims to dominate the euro crypto market.

The exchange says they have seven established bank and payments partners and says “client on-boarding infrastructure & AML/KYC policies capture significant upside from institutional adoption.”

Making this one of the first offering of its kind through a fund raising platform, Bnk to the Future.

The platform allows accredited investors (rich people) to invest, but also sophisticated investors.

For the latter, you complete a questionnaire which can easily be passed by anyone who has some understanding of investing, allowing you then to, in this case, invest a minimum of $1,000.

You can do so by funding the account through bitcoin, eth, and fiat, with non voting shares then received.

There does not appear to be any geographic restriction on who can invest, with all this opening on Monday and may well close later today at the rate it’s going.