What happened
Shares of FinTech Acquisition Corp. V (FTCV) soared 43% on Tuesday after the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) announced its plans to merge with Robinhood rival eToro.
So what
eToro bills itself as "the world's leading social trading platform." It allows more than 20 million registered users across over 100 countries to share their investment strategies, and follow the buy and sell transactions of other top-performing traders.
eToro operates in the U.S. and several international markets. It enables its users to trade stocks, exchange traded funds (ETFs), commodities, currencies, and crypto assets. eToro says these features make it a truly global multi-asset trading platform.
FinTech Acquisition Corp. V is helping to bring the rapidly growing eToro public. Image source: Getty Images.
The deal values eToro at roughly $9.6 billion. FinTech V will contribute $250 million in cash. Investors, including Softbank, Third Point, and Fidelity, will contribute an additional $650 million via a private placement in public equity (PIPE) at $10.00 per share.
The merger is expected to close in the third quarter, subject to shareholder approval. The combined company plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq exchange and operate as eToro Group Ltd.
Now what
FinTech V clearly appreciates eToro's impressive growth. The popular trading platform added more than 5 million new registered users in 2020. That helped to fuel a 147% surge in gross revenue to $605 million.
Better still, eToro's growth is accelerating. The company added an average of 192,000 new users per month in 2019; last year that figure climbed to 440,000. eToro is off to an even faster start in 2021 after gaining over 1.2 million new registered users in January alone.
"Our users come to eToro to invest, but also to communicate with each other; to see, follow, and automatically copy successful investors from all around the world," eToro CEO Yoni Assia said in a press release. "We created a new category of wealth management -- social investing -- and we are dominating the market as evidenced by our rapid expansion."
