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iTrustCapital—a Long Beach-based trading platform that allows investors to buy cryptocurrencies, gold and silver through their retirement accounts—is Southern California’s newest tech unicorn after raising $125 million in a Series A funding round.
New York-based Left Lane Capital led the funding, which values iTrustCapital at more than $1.3 billion valuation, according to the companies. The startup plans to use the proceeds to expand product offerings, explore potential acquisitions and grow its marketing reach. Prior to the Series A, it had been bootstrapped by the likes of angel investor John Vojtech.
Since launching in 2018, iTrustCapital has grown to roughly $2 billion in assets under management and 25,000 client-funded accounts. The startup said it has more than doubled its total transaction volume in the last six months, to over $4.5 billion.
Representatives for iTrustCapital and Left Lane Capital could not be immediately reached for comment.
The crypto IRA industry is a fledgling yet growing industry that has a handful of emerging players. Among iTrustCapital’s competitors is the Sherman Oaks-based Bitcoin IRA.
While crypto investing is most popular among those aged 21 to 35 years old, iTrustCapital boasts of its broader appeal in the retirement savings field, with a client base that includes “thousands” in the 45-to-65-year-old age range.
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On this episode of the Behind Her Empire podcast, hear from Minnie Ingersoll, partner at TenOneTen Ventures. She's also the co-founder and former COO of Shift, an online marketplace for used cars.
Key Takeaways:
- Minnie co-founded Shift in 2013 while she was on maternity leave. Her pleasure in building the business grew, which intersected with her decision to leave a cushy job at Google.
- Shift started out by buying and selling cars on CraigsList.
- Minnie took Shift from an idea to over $100 million in revenue and has seen continued success with the company going public last year in 2020.
- Minnie grappled with depression while attending Stanford University. What helped her through it was forcing herself to put "one foot in front of the other" and to talk about the darkness she was feeling with others. This helped her build some emotional resilience.
- Not knowing something - be it how to start a business or code - shouldn't stop anyone from not doing what they want to do. The education and resources out there, often just a simple Google search away.
- When it comes to solving conflict, Minnie asks questions instead of reacting quickly without taking into consideration where the other person is coming from.
- What TenOneTen generally looks for in founders is crystal clear vision, the ability to communicate it and the technical know-how to execute that vision.
"No one's going to help you achieve the thing that you want to do, if you don't tell them that's the thing you want to do." — Minnie Ingersoll
Minnie Ingersoll is partner at TenOneTen Ventures. She's also the co-founder and former COO of Shift, an online marketplace for used cars, and the host of the "L.A. Venture" podcast. She also was a principal at Google.org.
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