ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blockchain payments technology platform BitPay announced today that it is raising $30M in a strategic Series B funding round led by Aquiline Technology Growth (ATG), a fund managed by Aquiline Capital Partners that invests in early- and growth-stage financial technology companies.
BitPay's platform gives businesses and individuals powerful tools for secure blockchain payment acceptance, savings, and spending. In 2017, the company has achieved a record year for merchant payment processing on the Bitcoin blockchain, now approaching $2 billion in annualized payment volumes. BitPay's open source wallet platform has seen growing consumer adoption, recently reaching the milestone of $3B in monthly user payments. BitPay's prepaid Visa debit card, which lets bitcoin users turn bitcoin into dollars, pounds, or Euros for use with Visa merchants, has also seen significant year over year growth.
"We're proud of our team's work to grow BitPay's impact and revenues to this point," said BitPay CEO Stephen Pair. "We've been able to solve some of our customers' biggest payment problems, from multimillion dollar B2B payments to day to day expenses. Continually improving our customers' experience with BitPay is a priority for us as we plan our next steps for product development."
BitPay is raising this series B at an important time in its growth. The company will be using this funding for strategic steps toward solving the problems of the world's most difficult and valuable payments. It has already made inroads this year into cross-border supply chain payments and other payments underserved by traditional credit card and banking infrastructure.
“BitPay plays an important role in the crypto-currency ecosystem by helping consumers, businesses and other financial institutions seamlessly accept and transfer Bitcoin for goods and services in the real world,” stated Max Chee, Head of Aquiline Technology Growth. “We have been very impressed with BitPay's financial performance, including 700% top-line growth, and look forward to supporting its ambitious plans in the sector.”
ATG is a fund managed by Aquiline Capital Partners, a private equity firm investing in businesses across the financial services sector in banking and credit, insurance, investment management and markets, and financial technology and services. In addition to ATG, Aquiline manages three financial services funds and has raised over $6.5 billion of capital through its affiliated funds and co-investments.
“Aquiline brings a wealth of expertise in the financial services industry that makes them the right partner for BitPay," added Mr. Pair. "We're at an exciting time in payment history. We know that we have a long way to go, but we plan to build the blockchain payment platform that changes how money works on the internet."
The company has big goals for 2018 post-raise, including key engineering hires, regulatory licensing, technology acquisitions, and expansion into emerging markets in Asia – one of BitPay's fastest-growing regions for transactions and wallet adoption.
In 2014, BitPay raised a $30M series A round from investors including Index Ventures, Founder's Fund, Felicis Ventures, RRE Ventures, and Sir Richard Branson.