Cryptocurrency lending platform Ledn raised $70 million in a Series B funding round at a $540 million valuation, and plans to use some of the capital for its new bitcoin-backed mortgage product.
10T Holdings led the funding round, which included Golden Tree Asset Management, Raptor Group and FJ Labs. 10T’s CEO Dan Tapiero will be joining Ledn’s board of directors. Ledn said all of its existing investors also participated in the latest raise, which included billionaire hedge fund investor Alan Howard, and Kingsway Capital.
With its bitcoin-backed mortgage loan, Ledn clients will be able to purchase real estate and use an equal amount of bitcoin and property collateral as part of the mortgage loan. Ledn intends to make the product more broadly available to clients in the U.S. and Canada early next year.
Ledn says there is a waitlist for the product and aims to reach over $100 million in bitcoin-backed mortgage originations by the end of the first quarter of 2022.
“Most people that hold extensive wealth in Bitcoin still can’t utilize their assets to qualify for a mortgage at a bank,” Ledn’s co-founder and CEO Adam Reeds said in the statement.
Ledn developed the bitcoin-backed mortgage product after seeing strong client demand, Ledn co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Mauricio Di Bartolomeo told CoinDesk.
Di Bartolomeo said that not having to sell bitcoin is key for holders of the cryptocurrency, and that the mortgage product will be a great way to “teleport some of that wealth from bitcoin into the real world.”
Since the third quarter of 2020, Ledn has grown its assets by over 4,000%, exceeding $1.7 billion, according to the statement. The company has clients in 127 countries with 44% of its loan clients in Latin America, where it hopes to expand with help from the latest capital raise.
