Crypto lending firm Celsius Network has enlarged its $400 million Series B round from October to $750 million as a result of oversubscription in the firm's capital raise.
The company is now valued at $3.5 billion following the raise and CEO Alex Mashinsky told Cointelegraph he expects that figure to "double or triple" next year which would see it valued between $7B and $10.5B
The firm antecedently closed the round on Oct. 12 amid a period of intense examination placed on crypto lending firms from local regulators. Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky emphasised at the time that "it's not $400 million. It's the credibility that comes with the people who wrote those checks."
In an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Nov. 25, Celsius distinct that new medium of exchange resource will go towards expanding into new markets and product offerings, on with building its recently announced centralized finance (CeFi) to decentralised finance (DeFi) bridging project "CelsiusX".
Celsius will also apportion medium of exchange resource to up the "utility of its platform" and its commitment to property Bitcoin (BTC) mining.
Speaking on the $750 million funding round with Cointelegraph, Mashinsky said that the fact that the round was sold shows a "very good indication" of the strength of the Celsius brand, which he said was user focused.
"If you think of what we do, which is pay yield to the community, you know, we paid over $1 billion to our community and we in essence get that yield from exchanges and institutions. And most of our competitors [...] they charge the customers fees and give all that money to their shareholders," he said.
Celsisus distinct plans earlier this week to invest an extra $300 million into grading its BTC mining operations in North America, taking its total spend on the sphere to $500 million.
Mashinsky attributed his optimistic estimate of Celsius' value in 2022 to the firm's power to provide services in just about every sphere of crypto, as he highlighted the growth potential of the business:
"I think that by itself it is worth several multiplication what we invested. So between that and the growth of our core business, you know, the yield business, the lending business or the mining business, the DeFi business, all these things are plainly huge."
The Celsius CEO also pointed to the $115 million acquisition of crypto custody platform GK8 at first of this month, and discovered the firm has plans to enter the NFT sphere in the near future, although it won't be launching a marketplace as he feels there are already too many similar platforms out there.
"We think we can help kind of expand the category into other use cases or other ways of, you know, unlocking value for brands," he said.
Questioned on the firm's $20 million crowdfunding round from August 2021, in which more than 1000 investors from the Celsius community backed the firm. Mashinsky said the firm was valued at around $150 million at the time, and piece investors are presently unable to sell their holdings, it has turned bent be a handsome investment for them:
"Basically those 1000 people made on average, what is it, 25 multiplication of their money or something like that? Obviously, it's not liquid, they can't sell it tomorrow. But we think that they are super happy."
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