Mauricio Di Bortolomeo, the Venezuelan founder of Ledn, believes Bitcoin can be the basis for world access to finance.
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The majority of the planet does not have access to basic financial services. Our current systems are permissioned, gated, antiquated and corrupt. Finance has been the number one limiting factor for the majority of the world’s people. People are unable to save, they are unable to invest and they are unable to grow. This forces them into wasting time and energy to conserve value and just stay at zero. There is a tremendous amount of room for improvement in finance around the world.
Mauricio Di Bartolomeo thinks that Bitcoin can fix this. He grew up in Venezuela, a country rocked by hyperinflation that was once the top of Latin American society. Now, Venezuela has declined into one of the world’s poorest countries. Di Bartolomeo discovered Bitcoin because of his brother’s successful mining operation and his amazement as to what this asset represented for access to basic finance and sound money. He quickly realized that Bitcoin needed financial services and that there was an opportunity for bitcoin to serve as the world’s best collateral.
Di Bartolomeo cofounded Ledn.io with the dream of giving world class financial serves to the world. The site is focused on Bitcoin and offering multiple languages and the best rates. Di Bartolomeo thinks its international focus gives Ledn and edge because it is focused on a more decentralized cohort of people.
Bitcoin lending platform Ledn has announced the completion of a $30 million series A financing round.
Bitcoin lending platform Ledn has announced the completion of a $30 million series A financing round.
The platform lets users open interest-bearing bitcoin savings accounts and take out bitcoin-backed loans, giving them access to fiat without having to sell their BTC. It also offers services based on other digital assets, like USDC.
This round was led by London-based hedge fund Kingsway Capital, with participation from Hashed Venture Fund, Susquehanna Private Equity Investments, ParaFi Capital, billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard, John Pfeffer and Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian. All investors from Ledn’s previous funding round, including Coinbase Ventures and CMT Digital, also participated.
“Ledn has grown its assets on its platform by over 320% since its last round, just six months ago,” according to a release sent to Bitcoin Magazine. “Proceeds of the round will be used to grow Ledn’s team and global presence, as well as continue to enhance Ledn’s technology and product offerings. Additionally, Ledn’s investors bring regional-specific expertise that will enable Ledn to achieve its mission of unlocking the power of Bitcoin and other digital assets to build wealth through innovative financial products.”
Cofounder Mauricio Di Bartolomeo added that the company wants to expand on the success it has seen in North and South America, in addition to expanding its global footprint.
“We prioritize the needs of the people we serve, investing in solutions like proof-of-reserves to protect them,” he said, per the release. “Growing up in Venezuela, I saw firsthand how an unregulated system with little to no transparency can impact its people, and that’s why it’s such a core component of how we manage the funds our clients entrust to us.”
This morning, Toronto-based bitcoin lending and saving company Ledn announced a $2.7 million financing round led by White Star’s Digital Asset Fund, with participation from Darrow Holdings, Coinbase Ventures, Global Founders Capital, CMT Digital and Kingsway.
The Toronto-based company serves clients in over 100 countries by offering interest-paying savings accounts for bitcoin and USDC, as well as bitcoin-backed loans that provide borrowers with access to fiat or the opportunity to buy more bitcoin.
In a release shared with Bitcoin Magazine, Ledn said it will use the proceeds from the raise to further accelerate its growth.
“Over the past three years, we’ve focused on building a simple and secure platform that allows clients to grow their digital wealth through savings and credit products,” Adam Reeds, co-founder and CEO of Ledn, said in the release. “As we expand on our product offering with no-fee trading rolling out in the next several months and go deeper into new markets, we couldn’t be more excited to work with this select group of top venture investors that believe in our mission.”
In addition to the new fundraise, Ledn is also demonstrating its commitment to transparency by becoming the first-ever digital asset lender to complete a formal “proof-of-reserves” attestation. The examination will be completed by Armanino LLP, a digital asset assurance firm. Moving forward, Ledn users will be able to leverage Armanino’s platform to verify that their own funds were included in the attestation, while Ledn indicated that client privacy and data will remain secure.
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The Ledn team believes that such proof-of-reserves clarity will continue to become more important to users, and the team hopes that its efforts will influence an industry-wide standard of transparency.
“We believe that proof-of-reserves reviews that cover all assets and lending activities should be an industry standard across lending platforms,” said Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, co-founder and CSO of Ledn, in the release.
Canadian cryptocurrency lender Ledn is aiming to do in other emerging markets what it did in Latin America, with funding and advice from a new set of global venture capitalists, the company announced Monday.
The lender has raised a $2.7 million second seed round led by White Star Capital with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Global Founders Capital, CMT Digital, Kingsway and Darrow Holdings, an affiliate of Susquehanna International Group.
Ledn has already developed Spanish descriptions of its service and cryptocurrency content, as well a Spanish-speaking support team, said co-founder and chief strategy officer Mauricio Di Bartolomeo.
The company also built its product set around what was popular in Latin America. Ledn’s stablecoin savings features and micro-loans as low as $500 are also popular in the region, Di Bartolomeo added.
“When we developed the products in LatAm, we realized that the average assets that each client would have were not going to be at the same level as they were in North America,” Di Bartolomeo said. “That’s not just limited to Latin America. That’s similar to a lot of emerging markets.”
The next step for the company is to expand into Africa, said Ledn CEO Adam Reeds.
Previously, the company had raised $1.55 million from Spark Power Group co-CEO Andrew Clark and Someren Capital in September 2018, which it used at the time to expand its lending operation in Canada.
The lender also recently engaged auditing firm Armanino LLP for a proof-of-reserves attestation.
Ledn gave Armanino a hash of the assets each client held on the platform as of Jan. 31 for the accounting firm to prove that the company’s assets outweighed its liabilities.
“We’re opening ourselves up for clients to open up their own reserves without exposing any client data,” Reeds said. “We’re encouraging others in the industry to do this as well.”
Ledn plans to perform a proof-of-reserves process on a semi-annual basis going forward.
