Coinbase, the San Francisco, US based provider of bitcoin wallet and exchange service, has secured the largest investment in a Bitcoin startup ever through a $75 million Series C financing round closed earlier this week.
Led by DFJ Growth, with existing investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, and Ribbit Capital participating, the round also saw renowned capitalists such as The New York Stock Exchange, a subsidiary of USAA, and BBVA (a large multinational bank) along with individual investors like former Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit and former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer pooling in. The total investment in the company so far has gone up to $106 million, announced a Coinbase blog post.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong told CoinDesk: ”I think this just really changes the conversation. There’s smart money out there that is betting big on this and is totally unphased by the whims of the price and what the market is doing. They’re much more concerned about the fundamentals of what’s happening in the network … and across those metrics, everything is looking great.”
The funds will ensured the continued global adoption of Bitcoin, fueling the efforts to make it a mainstream entity and with the involvement of respected institutions in this round things might just get better.
Coinbase like many other startups hasn’t released its financial statements and the status of its profitability remains unknown. However, the company still claims growth with 2.1 million consumer wallets, and more than 38,000 merchants using Coinbase services, points out Wall Street Journal.
While speaking to Coindesk about the global outreach strategy Armstrong noted that area of interest will be underbanked territories, “areas that are underserved by traditional payment systems right now, areas where people’s next alternative is dramatically worse.”
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(Image credit: BTC Keychain, via Flickr)
