It’s been quite a week for PayPal news. A day after announcing that it intends to offer crypto to its customers, PayPal is now reported to be discussing potential crypto acquisitions.
According to a Bloomberg report, the digital payments giant built in part by Elon Musk has been holding talks on a possible acquisition of enterprise crypto startup BitGo Inc., with a deal possibly closed “within weeks.”
BitGo was founded in 2013, and offers enterprise-grade multiuser cryptocurrency wallets as well as API access to its underlying security platform. Its wallets are “multisig,” and require a transaction to have two or more signatures before it can be executed, a security layer that reduces fraud.
While an acquisition price is not known at this stage, BitGo last raised $57.5 million in 2018 on a valuation of $170 million. Two years on in a much stronger crypto climate, that valuation is likely to be significantly higher.
Current investors in BitGo include Goldman Sachs, Galaxy Digital Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, Craft Ventures, DRW and Redpoint Ventures. The company boasts numerous high profile clients including Binance, Coinbase and Nexo among others.
Bloomberg’s report speculates that the potential deal is one of a few that PayPal are considering. No other companies have been disclosed, but of course there is no shortage of startups in the industry that would make a good fit for PayPal. Using this BitGo acquisition as a guide, PayPal would presumably be looking for companies that provide complementary services to its newly announced cryptocurrency service.
