Yesterday was fun.

I was headed to Miami (first flight in 13 months) to meet with some crypto startups and I woke to the news that Etoro was going to go public via a SPAC. It all has come full circle because the first person to speak about Bitcoin to me was Yoni Assia back in 2010 in Tel Aviv.

I had known Yoni and Ronen were working on a SPAC because I was an investor in the PIPE and was making introductions to investors that wanted to participate in the PIPE as well. Social Leverage also participated in a pro-rata raise in Etoro’s recent raise.

Over a year ago I was suggesting to Yoni and Ronen that a SPAC would be a great vehicle for them to burst onto the public markets and they agreed.

Back when Social Leverage invested in 2010, Tom and I had not organized our first fund and so when I got home from Israel we fired off a term sheet to Yoni and started making calls to our friends to invest in an SPV (Single Purpose Vehicle) designed to invest in just Etoro. After we invested, Spark Capital led an A round and Etoro was off to the races.

Back in 2010 we invested at a $30 million valuation which at the time was considered crazy high. Yesterday the market cap at the close of the first day as an ‘almost’ public company was over $13 billion. Our bet on Yoni, Ronen and their ability to build a huge brokerage and crypto business was the right bet to make.

I will get Yoni back on my podcast to talk about the long journey. Here is a podcast I did with him during the panic last March.

Yesterday we shared the news with the group of investors and it was worth the wait. I love investing in start-ups.