Bitcoin payment startup PEY has raised €300,000 ($339,780) in seed funding for a new payroll service. The Hannover-based firm, which makes bitcoin point-of-sale (POS) terminals alongside a consumer app, attracted investment from a series of entrepreneurs, including the former managing director of multinational e-commerce company Zalando, Frank Biedka. Ricardo Ferrer Rivero, founder and managing director at PEY, told CoinDesk: “The new funding will be used to hire developers, pay lawyers for everything necessary to make in-depth checks on what we are offering to customers and to ensure that we find legal workarounds that help expand bitcoin adoption.” PEY will be launching the payroll solution this autumn, enabling companies in Germany – where the…
Blockchain technology startup Chain has raised $30 million in new venture funding, drawing funds from financial services companies including Capital One, Fiserv and Visa. French telecom giant Orange SA contributed to the round, months after disclosing that it was looking to invest in bitcoin startups, as did Nasdaq, which has been working with Chain, and Citi Ventures. RRE Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Thrive Capital and SV Angel – existing investors of the firm – also took part, as well as former Bank of America CEO David Coulter, X Prize Foundation CEO Peter Diamandis and MongoDB co-founder Kevin Ryan. In statements, Chain CEO Adam Ludwin spoke in broad strokes about the larger efficiencies major financial services providers could potential unlock as the…
Case has raised $1m in seed funding round led by FuturePerfect Ventures. The figure adds to the $1.5m round the New York-based startup secured in June, bringing its total amount raised to $2.25m. One of a growing number of bitcoin hardware wallet providers, including companies like KeepKey, Ledger and Trezor, Case is distinguished by a product designed with advanced security features such as biometrics and veteran entrepreneur and CEO Melanie Shapiro, who previously founded and sold social client startup Digsby. In statements, Shapiro suggested that the funding seeks to move the startup past its competitors by catering to both consumers and enterprise bitcoin and blockchain firms. For example, the company announced yesterday it had participated in the issuance of…
Abra, the startup developing a bitcoin powered remittance app, has raised just over $12 million in new funding. The Series A round drew support from a large number of investors including Arbor Ventures, RRE Ventures and First Round Capital. Combined with previous capital raised during a seed round, the startup has netted more than $14m in investment to date. The company plans to use the new funding to further develop the functionality of its remittance app as well as support efforts to expand the reach of its service. In a statement, Jim Robinson, general partner at RRE Ventures and a co-founder of Abra, said the company is “fully leveraging the potential of the technology by reducing friction in financial services”. He added: “It’s not…
Coinalytics has raised $1.1m as part of a seed round led by Palo Alto-based incubator The Hive. Founded in April 2014, Coinalytics describes itself as a “real-time intelligence service” for blockchain platforms. Today, the startup enables clients in the bitcoin industry, including undisclosed payment processors, wallet providers and exchanges, to conduct risk assessment through blockchain analysis. Coinalytics CEO Fabio Federici told CoinDesk: “We’re not building the infrastructure. But, if someone is accepting bitcoin, we can provide them ways to understand their users better.” Federici explained that by using the blockchain and its in-house tools for pattern recognition and real-time online learning, clients are able to accept…
UPDATE (8th September 18:55 BST): This piece has been updated with comment from ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees. Digital currency exchange ShapeShift.io has raised $1.6m in new funding. As reported by TechCrunch, the round drew support from Digital Currency Group, bitcoin entrepreneur Roger Ver and Bitfinex, the Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange Bitcoin Foundation executive director Bruce Fenton, Transform PR founder and CEO Michael Terpin and Trevor Koverko, founder of education-oriented e-commerce platform eProf, also took part in the round as angel investors. The announcement comes nearly six months after ShapeShift announced $525k in seed funding, an amount invested by both Ver and Digital Currency Group founder and CEO Barry Silbert. ShapeShift later made…