Bitpanda Pro spins out under Josh Barraclough, raises €30 million

Bitpanda Pro, a unit of the Austrian crypto firm targeting institutional and professional traders, has spun out into a new entity under the leadership of Josh Barraclough, a former digital innovation head at JPMorgan. 

The new entity will be named One Trading and has raised €30 million in a Series A round, according to an announcement this morning.

Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures led the raise, alongside MiddleGame Ventures, Speedinvest, Keyrock and Wintermute Ventures. Bitpanda will retain a stake in the company.

“It is our philosophy at Bitpanda that you have to stay agile and focused to provide the best services in this fast environment. Since we first launched Bitpanda Pro, given its potential, we always knew and planned that its success would naturally make it evolve to become its own business,” said Bitpanda CEO Eric Demuth in a statement.

Barraclough, who joined Bitpanda in October 2021 to run the Pro product, said One Trading will soon be launching “the fastest and most scalable exchange” in crypto.

“We aim to become a utility for large liquidity providers to exchange unlimited amounts of risk under a membership model instead of pay-per-trade and have low fees and deep books for retail with a number of liquidity protections,” he added.

“We will then start listing more products with appropriate controls and vetting as we move into derivatives. Above all we want a regulated, institutional-grade platform where people feel safe to trade with unique product options.”

Bitpanda in the bear market

Bitpanda raised hundreds of millions of dollars from venture backers in the crypto bull market and hit a valuation of $4.1 billion. Like many in the sector, however, it ran into trouble in the bear market. In June 2022, it emerged that the platform had cut roughly a quarter of its staff.

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Vienna, Bitpanda was largely retail-focused until the launch of its Pro product in 2019.

One Trading said in this morning’s announcement that it intends to operate as a MiFID Trading Venue. It also has a VASP licence. The pairing should allow it to offer “capital efficient spot and derivative products” for a wide range of customers. The MiFID licence will also allow the startup to list financial instruments, it added.