Binance: The fastest ever startup to to achieve Profitable Tech Unicorn status

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Binance, is a cryptocurrency exchange platform that combines digital technology and finance. The company provides access to exchange digital currency pairs on the market while maintaining security, liquidity, enabling a safe and efficient deal with anyone, anytime and anywhere.

Just a few months after launching they arguably are the fastest profitable startup to achieve unicorn status (private company with $1bn+ valuation) in history.

The image above highlights Binance’s exponential growth – in less than 5 months they’ve become the world’s 3rd biggest cryptocurrency exchange (though, according to Binance founder/CEO Changpeng Zhao aka CP, they are now #2, just behind Bitfinex, for now). Fighting talk! 🙂

Binance is valued at not just $1bn+ but actually closer to $2bn+, and they did it in less than 6 months. Yes, you read it right, 6 months.

20 US startups became unicorns in under 6 months, As far as I am aware, I believe they were ALL loss-making at the time achieving unicorn status. In crypto, half a dozen startups have raised 9 figure ICOs with coins trading at billions plus market caps.

Binance is a simple to use, safe crypto-currency exchange, helping investors and traders buy/sell while taking a commission.

In August, Coinbase raised $100m from top VC’s such as Draper Associates and Greylock Partners at a $1.6bn valuation, which confirmed their status as one of the first “Bitcoin” unicorns. While their business models are not the same, Binance likely has surpassed Coinbase in trading volume and at its current rate should take global #1, given that it operates in Asia (Japan/China) and Asia is 40%+ of global Bitcoin trading.

Binance have “only” raised $10m in a Series A round from VC’s such as Sequoia (founded by Legendary Donald T. Valentine and chaired by Welshman Sir Michael Moritz) and as they are highly profitable they may be getting many, many knocks on the door, which are likely to go unanswered as they may not need any more venture capital.

Binance have their own tokens (BNB) As of today, BNB is trading at $8 with 99m tokens circulating giving a market cap of $800m+. Earlier this week, BNB shot north of $10, valuing it at $1bn+. The circulating supply along with BNB held by founders, insiders and early investors is 199m, hence BNB’s value is closer to $2bn.

The success of Binance is of course illustrative of the fast growth of cryptocurrencies.

Congratulations to Zhao and the Binance team, I was an early user and I’m also a fan of the platform, especially it’s UX and durability, which is impressive with Binance’s huge traffic levels, being the world’s 347th and US’s 69th most visited site respectively. Let’s face it most exchanges are struggling to keep up with demand such as my piece yesterday about the exchange Kraken being down for 2 days, you can read that here so it further highlights just how good a job Binance are doing, yes in Coinbase’s case $100m helps, but an experienced team and ability to move and scale fast is something money doesn’t always buy and Binance show you can do a lot with much less money, if you spend it wisely and figure out how to make money! Take note startup founders!

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