SBF leads $50M funding round to bring DeFi to Maps.me's 140M users

Published at: Jan. 18, 2021

Leading offline mapping application Maps.me has conducted a $50 million fundraising round to embed decentralized finance tools onto its platform.

The funding round for “Maps.me 2.0” was led by Sam Bankman-Fried of Alameda Research and also featured participation from crypto venture heavyweights CMS Holdings and Genesis Capital.

Maps.me 2.0 will be a wide-ranging application, featuring travel guides, hotel bookings and mapping services, in addition to exchange features and a multi-currency crypto-asset wallet offering annual yields of up to 8%.

Alex Grebnev, the co-founder of Maps.me 2.0, told Cointelegraph that users will be able to "generate yield on their savings by directly lending it out securely to borrowers."

"We also plan to give our users the ability to trade a wide range of assets that are not limited by geographical boundaries or transaction size."

Maps.me claims to be the first “mainstream app” to embrace DeFi, with the application boasting a user base of more than 140 million after eight years of operation. Around 60 million users were active in 2020. Bankman-Fried said:

“By embedding and democratizing access to yield-earning finance to millions of users via an everyday app, Maps.me has the potential to really propel DeFi mainstream adoption and bring a groundbreaking technology to the masses.”

The announcement states the platform intends to “break down financial silos determined by nationality or net worth” through its DeFi integrations. Grebnev further explained: 

“The industry is waiting for a catalyst for the mass adoption of DeFi tools and we’re excited to make this a reality by leveraging our active userbase as a means to bootstrap a retail community for a new innovative DeFi platform on Maps.me.”

"Our long-term vision is to create an embedded platform that combines a broad range of financial services that provide an easier way to invest, pay, and travel. We see the ability to bundle things like foreign exchange, investing, credit card, and peer-to-peer payment services — with low fees, no hidden costs, and strong loyalty incentives," he added.

Maps.me was launched in 2012 under its old name MapsWithMe and was acquired by Mail.ru for roughly $14 million in 2014. On Nov. 2, 2020, Daegu Limited, a member of Grebnev’s Parity.com Group, purchased the app for nearly $20 million.

Grebnev told Cointelegraph that Parity acquired Maps.me with the objective of building "an ecosystem that integrated DeFi tools with a platform that had a large user base."

Tags
Business
Defi
Investments
Sam Bankman-Fried
Related Posts
Alameda Research invests $4M in Vietnamese DeFi project
Alameda Research has expanded its investment portfolio by allocating $4 million to Coin98 Finance, an up-and-coming decentralized finance platform from Vietnam, according to Chinese fintech outlet ChainNews. Coin98 Ventures, the venture capital firm behind Coin98, reportedly operates the biggest cryptocurrency fund in Vietnam and is also a key backer of the Solana Ecosystem Fund, which recently raised $40 million in strategic investments from major digital currency exchanges. As ChainNews notes, Coin98 operates a decentralized exchange and wallet, with transaction volumes totaling $20 million in March. The exchange boasts of roughly 200,000 users, mainly in Southeast Asia. Alameda Research is a …
Business / April 6, 2021
Framework’s Michael Anderson: ‘Ethereum is where DeFi will continue to be’
Following the collapse of initial coin offerings, venture capital became the primary funding source for cryptocurrency projects. A slew of crypto-native funds opened their doors, one of them being Framework Ventures, a fund primarily investing in decentralized finance that was co-founded by Michael Anderson and Vance Spencer. Cointelegraph previously reported on Anderson’s philosophy of network capital, a change in investing mindset that is almost necessary in a space where decentralized protocols take the place of traditional companies and equity structures. Framework Ventures has made several investments, notably into Chainlink’s LINK token and Synthetix’s SNX token. But the fund is not …
Altcoin / Sept. 12, 2020
Telos raises $8M funding before EVM launch to avoid token sales
Blockchain platform Telos raised $8 million in funding led by ConsenSys and Polygon investor John Lilic. The funding was secured right before the launch of Telos’ Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) platform, ending the company’s ongoing streak of bootstrapped initiatives. Telos aims to redirect the recently secured capital on the platform’s development and marketing in addition to improving the liquidity of the ecosystem “without needing to resort to TLOS token sales in the event of a prolonged bear market over the next year.” According to Telos chief architect Douglas Horn: “While this [bootstrapping] preserved our identity as an egalitarian, self-governing community, …
Adoption / Nov. 9, 2021
I predicted FTX's collapse a month before it happened
The collapse of FTX has shown that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. In a year filled with jaw-dropping unveilings, none compare to the bewildering fall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange. While many were stunned, there were a few tell-tale signs that may have indicated not everything was peachy-perfect over at FTX headquarters. These issues began to compound and, on Oct. 5, I published a detailed commentary about my decision to begin pulling funds out of FTX and short FTT. Im taking all of my capital out of @FTX_Official and going short $FTT FTX has been swinging and missing all year …
Business / Nov. 19, 2022
Sam Bankman-Fried says he will testify before the US House Financial Services Committee remotely
Continuing his so-called apology tour, Sam Bankman-Fried appeared on a Twitter Spaces chat with Unusual Whales and told nearly 60,000 listeners that he intends to testify at the United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee remotely on Dec. 13. He was previously confirmed to appear in person. Bankman-Fried, who is allegedly currently located in the Bahamas, missed the deadline to confirm his appearance before the Senate Banking Committee the following day, despite the threat of a subpoena. Despite his frequent public speaking, Bankman-Fried has gone silent on Twitter himself, not posting since Dec. 9, when he indicated his agreement …
Blockchain / Dec. 12, 2022