LUNO, the crypto company founded by two South Africans, now has 9 million customers in more than 40 countries with the addition this week of 1 million new customers – all of them in just more than four months.
Luno was acquired last year by US-based DCG, the world’s largest blockchain investor and is targeting a billion customers by 2030.
South Africa is one of Luno’s strongest markets – more than 30 percent of the 1 million new customers added since June are based in South Africa.
Marius Reitz, the general manager for Africa at Luno, said: “The average value of first deposits made by our million new customers is around R550. Most new customers (67 percent) bought Bitcoin, while 43 percent bought Ripple and 20 percent bought Ethereum. Of the new customers, 37 percent are aged between 18 and 24, and gender splits align with trends in financial services – almost three quarters (71 percent) are male.”
Marcus Swanepoel, a former investment banker, and Timothy Stranex, who previously worked for Google as a software engineer, founded Luno in 2013 with a focus on providing a simple, safe and easy tool for buying cryptocurrency online and on mobile.
“Staff numbers have swelled to over 600 across the UK, South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Australia and Singapore, and we are actively hiring over 60 specialists,” said Reitz.
IOL TECH