Coinhouse wants to become the first crypto-bank

French crypto asset trading and investment platform Coinhouse has completed a funding round in which Oddo Bank is participating. This new investment should allow Coinhouse to diversify its offer around crypto-currencies and to develop it internationally. Above all, it marks the brand new interest that traditional banks have in these investment instruments.

FACTS

• Founded in 2015, Coinhouse was the first exchange platform to be registered as a digital asset service provider (DASP) in France in 2020.

• It has just successfully completed a second fundraising round of €40 million. Among the participants in the round were ConSensys and the bank ODDO BHF.

• Since the launch of its mobile application for the general public, Coinhouse has offered an increasingly wide range of services adapted to all investor profiles:

  • a customer service department composed of crypto experts, based in Paris, multilingual and accessible by email and telephone;

  • a team of account managers and experts dedicated to corporate clients;

  • products for managing crypto savings: Crypto passbook and Managed Accounts in particular. Coinhouse launched a tethers savings account at the end of 2021;

  • a crypto custodian offering for institutional investors and large accounts.

• The company also wants to accelerate its international expansion by doubling its turnover abroad this year, particularly in Luxembourg.

CHALLENGES

• This is the first time in France that a so-called "traditional" financial player has invested in a specialist crypto player. Benoît Claveranne, manager of ODDO BHF, says he is convinced that there is a real transformation challenge for the sector in which it is necessary to participate to better understand it. The bank will take a seat on the fintech board. This move is symptomatic of the growing interest of banks in a sector that they had long neglected. Today, the status of PSAN, which provides a framework for the players, has made it possible to reassure all the players in the chain. As for Coinhouse, it now offers a service similar to that of a bank. For example, it offers a management mandate to invest in bitcoins and ethereums, like a private bank. These are all criteria that justify ODDO BHF's interest.

• Focusing on BtoB: The company claims to have already supported more than 20 major French and international brands by enabling them to securely acquire and hold land in metavers, or to accept payments in crypto that are immediately converted into euros for the sale of non-fungible objects or tokens (NFT), without having to manage the complexity of a portfolio or the accounting management of volatile assets. Today, the BtoB segment represents nearly 30% of its revenue and is set to grow.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• Coinhouse has also just announced a partnership with the BtoB neo-bank Qonto, to allow the latter's corporate clients to invest part of their cash on crypto-assets. This is a demand that comes from Qonto's customers.

• The bank Delubac & Cie has also just launched an offer to buy and sell and hold crypto-currencies for institutions, companies and individuals, a new sign of the maturity of this market.

• The stock market crisis that affected technology stocks in the US did not spare crypto players, who themselves experienced their own crash after the collapse of Terra. Investments have become rarer and tend to select projects with a long-term transformation.

Profile

• Coinhouse states on its website that it manages over 350,000 accounts.

• It employs around one hundred people.

• A subsidiary of the French unicorn Ledger, it became independent in 2018.

• The company has been profitable since the end of 2020.