December 24, 2024
Cryptocurrency payment platform MoonPay is reportedly in talks to acquire Helio Pay for $150 million. If the acquisition is successful, it could boost MoonPay’s cryptocurrency offerings and attract more users to the platform.
However, data indicates that MoonPay's investment activities have been subpar over the past two years.
MoonPay plans its biggest acquisition yet
According to Fox Business’ Eleanor Terrett: MoonPay is in talks to acquire Helio for around $150 million. If the deal goes through, it would be MoonPay’s largest acquisition since its founding in 2018.
Helio is a comprehensive payment platform for the Web3 economy. In April 2023, during its seed funding round, the project raised $3.3 million, attracting participation from several venture capital firms, including Solana Ventures, RockawayX, Faction, and 23 other investors. To date, Helio reports over 6,000 merchants, over 1 million users, and annual sales exceeding $1.5 billion.
“Helio is an alternative to Coinbase Commerce that offers a self-service cryptocurrency payment platform that enables content creators and e-commerce merchants to take payments in cryptocurrencies. Currently, it offers custom solutions, including Solana Pay, which is integrated into Shopify, and Dexscreener’s trading infrastructure.” - journalist Eleanor Teret said.
In 2024, MoonPay has made remarkable strides in the bull market environment. For example, last month, MoonPay set a record for Solana transactions in a single day. Additionally, the company has continued to integrate with various partners, such as Ripple and PayPal, to diversify its payment channels and asset management.
The potential acquisition of Helio could be their next big leap. The plan comes amid a wave of growing adoption of cryptocurrencies and positive expectations about the global acceptance of stablecoin payments.
According to MoonPay's official website, the platform is currently active in over 160 countries, has over 20 million accounts, and has facilitated cryptocurrency transactions exceeding $6 billion.
Data from Cryptorank shows that MoonPay’s investment activity has been quiet in 2024. Since 2023, MoonPay has invested in around 10 projects in the cryptocurrency market, with 50% of these investments related to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse. However, these two sectors have performed very poorly in 2024.