BitBillions, Bitcoin, Bitpay - are they all connected?
BitPay, Inc. announced today that they have completed a seed funding round of $510,000 from several angel investors demonstrating that bitcoin can attract the capital necessary to encroach upon legacy payment methods. Similar to merchant processors for credit and debit cards, BitPay is a Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in eCommerce, B2B, and enterprise solutions for virtual currencies.
Investors participating in the seed round include SecondMarket founder Barry Silbert, Spotify investor Shakil Khan, Jimmy Furland, Roger Ver, and other Internet entrepreneurs. Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed but co-founders Anthony Gallippi and Stephen Pair will retain majority ownership. Investors Silbert and Ver also participated in the April 2012 funding round for mining pool operator CoinLab.
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CEO Anthony Gallippi says, “BitPay plans to use the funds to move the headquarters from Orlando to Atlanta and to hire additional developer talent for enhancement to the BitPay platform.” With proximity to other financial technology companies and several leading universities, Atlanta provides an excellent base for expansion.
Gallippi added that the WordPress decision to begin accepting Bitcoin via BitPay for certain features is “what really accelerated this funding round because investors saw it as the ideal time to move forward.” Since the November 2012 WordPress deal, BitPay has seen new merchants increase by nearly 50% to over 2,000.
The total dollar value of all bitcoin transactions processed by BitPay in 2012 was over $3 million, which represents average quarter-to-quarter growth of 50% over the past four quarters for transaction volume.
A new Payment Processor??