Fintech Wealthsimple has raised about $610 million in a funding round with a post-money valuation of about $4 billion. The round was led by venture capital firms Meritech and Greylock.
The funding round also had some notable celebrity participants including Drake, Michael J. Fox, Ryan Reynolds, Kelly Olynyk, Dwight Powell and others, a news release shows.
Wealthsimple is a Canadian company that provides a variety of financial services, it has a stock trading platform called Wealthsimple Trade and last August launched Wealthsimple Crypto which lets customers buy, sell and hold crypto assets through its mobile app. The company also has a P2P money transfers app called Wealthsimple Cash.
“More than two million Canadians use Wealthsimple to grow their money, file their taxes, pay their friends, and make their financial lives better,” Mike Katchen, co-founder and CEO, Wealthsimple, said in a statement. “This investment will fuel our growth so we can reach millions more and ensure that everyone has access to the simplest, most powerful financial products and services, no matter who they are or where they are in their financial lives.”
Wealthsimple has more than doubled its post money valuation from its most previous funding round. In October Wealthsimple raised about $93 million in a funding round with a $1.22 billion post-money valuation.
The news release stated that the last time VC firms Meritech and Greylock partnered up to co-lead a financing round was Facebook’s Series B in 2006.
“Wealthsimple has been able to capture a generation of financial consumers in Canada with financial products that are markedly different than anything offered by the incumbents — simpler, more human, and built with the kind of technology that delivers an experience consumers want,” Max Motschwiller, General Partner, Meritech said in a statement.
In other recent fundraising news, fintech startup Rho Technologies has lined up $100 million in debt financing to grow its business banking platform.The financing comes from San Francisco-based Community Impact Management, a social impact investment firm that provides debt financing to fintech companies.