This morning BitPay, one of the industry’s largest business and payment solutions providers, announced some very big news, bringing sizable implications for the future of Bitcoin as both a payment method and emerging technology. The company announced what has become the record for funding of any business in the Bitcoin space. Led by international venture capital firm Index Ventures, BitPay has raised $30 million in Series A, bringing their astronomical grand total of $32.7M in funding.
The round of funding further solidifies the company’s continued growth, innovation and outreach which has helped the currency reach new heights. With support from many venture capital firms and big names like Sir Richard Branson, BitPay’s Series A funding was received from all over the world – London, Geneva, New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong. This news drives home the point that the Bitcoin business, the payment method and technology are here for good. By raising more venture funding than any bitcoin business, the Atlanta based company plans on tripling its workforce throughout the world, in addition to continuing to expand its solutions for merchants who want to start accepting bitcoin.
The company released an official press release this morning, which follows:
Bitcoin payments pioneer BitPay raises record $30M in Series A led by Index Ventures
Atlanta, GA – 8 May 2014 – BitPay, the world leader in business solutions for Bitcoin digital currency, today announces a Series A funding round of $30M (€22M), led by Index Ventures, with participation from Horizons Ventures, Founders Fund, Felicis Ventures, RRE Ventures, TTV Capital, Sir Richard Branson, and AME Cloud Ventures.
With total accumulated investment reaching $32.7M, BitPay has now raised more venture funding than any other bitcoin startup. This fundraising round includes powerful venture capital from London, Geneva, New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong. Mr. Jan Hammer from Index Ventures will be joining BitPay’s Board of Directors, along with Mr. Jimmy Furland who represents the original investor group.
BitPay now processes $1 million per day in bitcoin payments for over 30,000 merchants, 50% of whom are in the U.S., with 30% in Europe and 20% across the rest of the world. Its customers include WordPress, TigerDirect, and Shopify. Sir Richard Branson’s commercial space travel company Virgin Galactic also uses BitPay to accept payments in bitcoins.
The company plans to use the investment to expand globally and create around 70 jobs, more than tripling the company’s workforce across its teams in Atlanta, San Francisco, Buenos Aires and Amsterdam. The majority of the new positions will be developers who will work under co-founder Stephen Pair. In addition to BitPay’s core merchant acquiring products, the company is also developing open source projects around Bitcoin such as Bitcore, Insight, and Copay.
“Bitcoin is a borderless and frictionless payment system, which is nearing a tipping-point moment in terms of merchant adoption,” said BitPay co-founder Tony Gallippi. “Unlike existing payment technologies such as credit cards, with their high fees and risk of fraud and chargebacks, bitcoin was designed for the Internet age, offering companies a lower-cost, lower-risk alternative.”
Index Ventures partner Jan Hammer added: “Bitcoin has emerged as the Internet’s payment system of choice and is now a core building block of the future global economy. By enabling thousands of merchants to accept payment in bitcoins quickly, safely and seamlessly, BitPay is already the proven and trusted winner in this space. Tony, Stephen and the team have achieved a fantastic amount with scant resources, and the combination of the huge market opportunity, the quality of the talent and this fresh injection of capital, will surely propel them to success on a global scale.”
“We are active in the Atlanta community, focused on innovative financial services technology, and believe the financial industry is the foundation of all commerce,“ said Gardiner Garrard, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, TTV Capital. “We see BitPay playing a key role in the future of electronic payments and paving the path for [the] digital currency bitcoin.”
About BitPay
BitPay is a Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in e-commerce, B2B and enterprise solutions for the Bitcoin digital currency.
About Index Ventures
Index Ventures is a multi-stage international venture capital firm based in London, San Francisco and Geneva. Since 1996, Index has teamed up with exceptional entrepreneurs in more than 20 countries, who are using technology to reshape the world around us. The companies they’ve started include Adyen, ASOS, Climate Corp, Criteo, Dropbox, Etsy, Hortonworks, Just Eat, King, Moleskine, Nasty Gal, Ozon, Pure Storage, Skype, SoundCloud, Sonos, Supercell, Transferwise and Wealthfront.
