Luno, a crypto company founded by Marcus Swanepoel and Timothy Stranex has achieved the milestone of reaching 9 million customers in over 40 countries. The rapid growth of the company is illustrated by the addition of one million new customers in just over four months.
As one of Africa’s strongest markets, over 45% of the one million new Luno customers added since June are based in Africa.
Luno was acquired last year by US-based DCG, the world’s largest blockchain investor and is targeting a billion customers by 2030.
Speaking on this milestone, Marius Reitz, GM for Africa at Luno commented, “The average value of first deposits made by our million new customers is around USD32. Most new customers (83%) bought Bitcoin, while 27% bought Ethereum and 23% bought Ripple. Of the new customers, 35% are aged between 18 and 24, and gender splits align with trends in financial services – almost three quarters (65%) are male.”
Marcus Swanepoel, a former investment banker, and Timothy Stranex, who previously worked for Google as a software engineer, founded Luno in 2013. The aim of the platform was to provide a simple, safe and easy tool for buying cryptocurrency online and on mobile.
“As we hit the 9 million customer mark, it is a fitting symbol that Luno’s logo now adorns an iconic building in Cape Town’s unofficial financial district on the foreshore. 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,” stated Reitz.
Reitz further noted that it took five years for Luno to build a base of its first one million customers in 2017.
“Luno’s growth has accelerated significantly since then. In the last year alone, we have added over 3.6 million new customers,” he added.