Struggling cryptocurrency exchange V Ventures, a division of Thoresen Thai Agencies Pcl, is about to pay $100 million to purchase Zipmex. Reports say that a venture capital fund is giving out $30 million in cash and the rest in cryptocurrency tokens.
Bloomberg reports that V Ventures will purchase around 90% of Zipmex. A court hearing said that the cryptocurrency in the agreement will be used to slowly unfreeze clients’ wallets on the platform by early April.
Zipmex, which has affiliates in Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia, stopped withdrawals in July of this year. It said that the “financial difficulties” of its “important business partners” were the reason.
Several cryptocurrency platforms and lending companies, including Celsius Network and Babel Finance, took similar actions at the same time, blaming market volatility and the ensuing counterparty concerns. Zipmex provided the platforms with two $53 million loans, neither of which was paid back. While Celsius went bankrupt, Zipmex was one of the first companies in Asia to be saved.
A $41 million investment from Bank of Ayudhya, one of Thailand’s biggest banks, was made in Zipmex last year. More recently, it was rumored that Coinbase had agreed to make a strategic investment in the Singaporean company and was putting the finishing touches on a Series B+ funding round that would reportedly increase its valuation to $400 million. The exchange eventually acknowledged that it had not invested in the company.
A notice on the company’s website says that the Singapore High Court gave all of Zipmex’s entities creditor protection protection until April of next year. The court also told Zipmex Asia to set December 21 as the date for any applications for super-priority rescue financing.
Please be advised that the Singapore High Court has granted extensions of each of the moratoria in respect of Zipmex Company Limited, Zipmex Pte Ltd, Zipmex Asia Pte Ltd (“Zipmex Asia”), Zipmex Australia Pty Ltd, and PT Zipmex Exchange Indonesia, respectively, until April 2, 2023, at the hearings of the extension of time applications this morning (HC/SUMS 4184, 4185, 4186, 4187, and 4188 of 2022).
Three months of protection from creditors were given to the struggling company until December 2 in order to give them more time to restructure their debt.
