Israel’s trading platform eToro valued at $3.5bn in funding round

NurPhoto

Israeli online trading platform eToro said on Tuesday it had recently raised $250 million in a funding round that valued the online brokerage at $3.5 billion, months after its proposed merger with a blank-check company fell through.

The funding round was backed by Ion Group, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Velvet Sea Ventures and others, eToro said. It was part of an agreement that the brokerage had entered into when the merger was announced in 2021.

As investor interest in special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) waned, eToro and FinTech Acquisition Corp V mutually ended their planned deal in July. The merger would have given the brokerage a valuation of $8.8 billion.

The SPAC, backed by fintech entrepreneur Betsy Cohen, was liquidated later.

With retail trading activity ticking up, eToro has seen improved profitability in the year so far, compared with the previous quarter, it said.