WonderFi Technologies is set to increase its footprint in Canada by acquiring First Ledger Corp for about $162 million. First Ledger Corp is the parent company of BitBuy, which was founded in 2016. Through this acquisition, the decentralized finance platform will become an end-to-end platform for crypto and DeFi.
An official statement says WonderFi will go ahead with the procurement by issuing 70 million new shares. The platform will pay an upfront cash of $15.7 million. About $23 million will be in deferred cash via a vendor-takeback note. It will be due in 12-months. WonderFit will keep the current Bitbuy employees. It plans to enter into employment agreements with key members of the management team.
Ben Samaroo, CEO of WonderFi, says the incorporation of BitBuy’s product suite will broaden the reach and scope that the DeFi platform can offer to the market. It will drive long-term growth and value for the company. Samaroo highlighted that once the deal is closed, WonderFi and Bitbuy’s product suites will function independently of one another. The company will look for ways to augment regulators to shift WonderFi’s DeFi products over to BitBuy.
He shared that WonderFi is looking for integration opportunities to leverage some of the stuff on the DeFi side for BitBuy. However, Samaroo said its subject to working with the regulators on their existing license. They are looking forward to being able to offer end-to-end, everything under the sun to the users.
Kevin O’Leary, a crypto advocate, believes the deal will help the two companies to have the bandwidth, assets and licences to provide an institutional-grade compliant crypto platform. The Shark Tank star says WonderFi will product and services for a really large segment of the market.
It should be noted that WonderFi has also undergone a name change in June 2021 from DeFi Ventures Inc to Mr Wonderful. This was O’Leary’s television nickname.
