Bitcoin payments startup BitPay has raised $40 million in any Series B funding round that included iconic Silicon Valley venture capital firm Menlo Ventures.
The Atlanta-based company, which processes cryptocurrency payments for merchants, had originally announced the funding round in December. The firm had sought in order to boost $30 million but ultimately expanded the prospective to $40 million responding to “high demand,” BitPay CEO Stephen Pair said within the interview with tech news outlet Recode.
The funding round was led by Aquiline Technology Growth, this device not as large as other types seen in the cryptocurrency space in recent times, it was BitPay’s most lucrative funding round to date.
Pair said that BitPay is actually profitable in the last 18 months, decreasing the amount of funding the firm must cover its operating costs as well as finance expansion.
It was a landmark investment for Menlo, that was founded in 1976 and was an example of Silicon Valley’s first capital raising firms. Prior to this funding round, Menlo hadn’t invested in a blockchain startup, despite actively exploring them on a year . 5.
BitPay last raised capital through its Series A round in 2019, which saw the firm raise $30 million with a group of high-profile investors including Richard Branson, AME Cloud Ventures, and Founders Fund.
The company wishes to use its Series B funds to inflate its operations into Asia, where it consists of recently inked a serious partnership with South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb for cross-border remittance payments.
BitPay also plans to hire more engineers, employees who’s going to likely be given the job of helping the firm increase its stable of cryptocurrencies beyond bitcoin — a move that the company first previewed in 2009.
The first fruits of these pivot materialized last week, when BitPay began allowing merchants to accept the bitcoin cash payments, marking the first time in the company’s much more than six year history not wearing running shoes has processed payments to have a cryptocurrency other than bitcoin.