20 Jan 2015 – Mashable – The price of Bitcoin may be dropping, but funding continues to roll in for startups working with the digital currency.
Coinbase, a startup that provides a digital wallet for buying, selling and storing bitcoins, announced Tuesday that it raised $75 million in a Series C funding round from a list of big name investors including, in a symbolic boost of confidence, the New York Stock Exchange.
“Today’s fundraise gives us solid growth capital to continue driving mainstream, global adoption of Bitcoin,” the company said in a statement.
Brian Armstrong, a former Airbnb engineer, founded Coinbase in 2012 with the goal of building a more “legitimate platform” to help the currency become more mainstream. At the time, though, Bitcoin had not yet experienced the meteoric price increase that brought it the attention of mainstream media and investors.
“We got a lot of ‘nos’,” Armstrong admitted to Mashable in an earlier interview when asked about his luck approaching investors at that time. “I couldn’t explain the whole concept of Bitcoin to someone in a pitch and also get them to invest.”
Clearly that is no longer a problem. The latest funding round, led by DFJ Growth with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures, brings Coinbase’s total funding to $106 million. The startup is now reportedly valued at around $400 million….. Read more
