The leading San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase recently paid around $100 million to acquire an app Earn.com. The app pays its users in cryptocurrency for answering emails, and completing tasks. As a part of the deal, Balaji Srinivasan, the CEO and co-founder of Earn.com will serve as its first chief technology officer.
Coinbase is on a startup buying spree as it is eager to develop its C-suite. Recently the company made another big hire by adding Emilie Choi to its mainstream staff in March. The main purpose of roping in Choi is to acquire small startups like Earn and it seems that Choi has already started working on it. Another big hire was of Tina Bhatnagar who previously worked in Twitter. The company also brought in Rachel Horowitz, the former Facebook and Twitter communications director. Former New York Stock Exchange executive, Eric Scro also joined Coinbase in March as Vice-President, Finance.
According to the CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, they are aiming to double their business within Coinbase after the acquisition of Earn.com. Armstrong said that Earn is one of the best and earliest practical blockchain applications and as a paid email product it has achieved meaningful traction.
Coinbase Acquires Earn At A Cost Lower Than The Previous Valuation
As per Armstrong, the role of Balaji will be to serve as the technological evangelist for the company and as a CTO he will be expected to evangelize for both Coinbase and crypto. The Silicon Valley media reports say that the estimated deal of around $100 million is considerably lower as compared to the previously made valuations for the Indian company known for developing paid email product.
Experts believe that the major part of the deal is to bring in the former Andreessen Horowitz partner, Balaji into the core working of Coinbase. The payment for the deal will be partly made in stock, in cash, and in crypto assets. The hiring of Balaji is a part of the ambition of Coinbase to build a C-suite. The Indian company was first started as a hardware maker for mining bitcoin. It rebranded itself in the fall of 2017.
