BitPay, a Bitcoin digital currency operator, has secured funds of nearly $30m through a Series A funding round from a group of investors including Horizons Ventures, Founders Fund, Sir Richard Branson, and AME Cloud Ventures.
The fundraising, touted to be the largest capital investment in digital currency sector, valued the company at $160m with Index Ventures leading the financing that also included investments from Felicis Ventures, RRE Ventures and TTV Capital.
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Branson was quoted by CNET as saying that the banking industry is going through an enormous change and innovation with BitPay continuing to build trust during the ongoing currency revolution.
The current investment is much higher than $2.7m that the company secured during the fundraising session in 2013.
BitPay intends to use the funds to fuel global expansion, alongside tripling its work staff across its units in Atlanta, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, and Amsterdam hiring around 70 software developers, reported Finextra.
The digital currency operator is looking to undertake open source projects around Bitcoin providing merchants with added value services such as accounting and tax reporting software.
BitPay processes bitcoin payments of over $1 million per day from 30,000 merchants that includes WordPress, TigerDirect, Shopify, and Virgin Galactic – Sir Richard Branson’s ambitious commercial space travel firm.
