The year 2021 has not been a smooth one for Ledger. Indeed, the company has been targeted by hackers, resulting in data leakage from Ledger wallet users. These repeated attacks and leaks have had major repercussions for the French nugget. Yet, Ledger is off to a great start in 2021 with outsized performance, which has allowed it to complete its third round of funding for several hundred million dollars.
Ledger, the 16th French unicorn
Hardware wallet maker Ledger closed a $380 million Series C round of funding, valuing the startup at over $1.5 billion. 10T Fund, an investment fund founded by Dan Tapiero, led the round alongside existing and new investors including Tekne Capital, Uphold Ventures, Felix Capital, Inherent, Financière Agache (Groupe Arnault) and iAngels Technologies.
“We reached a $1.5 billion valuation with this round, but really our real goal is a $100 billion valuation, and the reason we estimate reaching a $100 billion valuation is because the market will be really huge. ”
Pascal Gauthier, CEO of Ledger
The proceeds from the fundraising will be spent on innovation. Indeed, Ledger intends to offer access to the DeFi ecosystem through Ledger Live, the company’s crypto management app. Additional international expansion is also being considered. Gauthier said Ledger is investing in internationalization, with a focus on adapting the service to non-English speaking countries.
Bitcoin takes on the world
In its seven years of existence, Ledger has become the hottest hardware wallet maker on the market, despite some technical hiccups in 2020. Ledger’s wallets allow crypto asset holders to store their private keys – which control access to funds – on devices isolated from the internet, to prevent any risk of hacking.
To date, Ledger is more than 360 employees with 3 million wallets sold in 190 countries. According to the company, its wallets currently secure more than 15% of digital assets in circulation. In order to continue its international growth, the company plans to hire 300 additional employees. The main areas of development will be the conquest of non-English speaking markets and the upgrade of the wallet operating system.
