BitFury Capital, the investment arm of bitcoin mining infrastructure provider BitFury, has announced an undisclosed investment in BitGo.
The news marks the venture capital firm’s second announcement in recent weeks, following confirmation that it had invested in an anonymous bitcoin wallet provider. It is unclear whether the two announcements are related.
Speaking to CoinDesk, BitGo CEO Will O’Brien elaborated on the significance of the deal, though he declined to offer any specifics.
Praising BitFury as a leader in the bitcoin mining sector, O’Brien told CoinDesk:
“BitFury is one of the largest companies in the bitcoin space and they’re looking to invest further in global entrepreneurship and really exciting companies in the space. To have the endorsement from your customer, saying they not only want to be a customer, but also want to be an investor, that’s a big deal.”
Although neither company disclosed the size of the investment, O’Brien did suggest that the sum was smaller than BitGo’s $2m seed funding round and $12m Series A.
“We don’t disclose investments unless they’re of a particular size and scale,” he said, adding that securing a valuable client relationship was more important than the capital raised.
In conjunction with the deal, BitFury announced it would use BitGo’s enterprise multi-signature platform for its enterprise treasury management needs.
Platinum customer
BitGo announced that BitFury has become the company’s latest Platinum-tier customer, a move that the company says signals the growing interest in both its product and enterprise financial management tools that are specialized to the needs of the bitcoin industry.
BitFury CEO Valery Vavilov suggested that the company’s recent expansion was a key driver behind the deal, saying:
“As our business has been scaling rapidly, we were looking for efficient and secure bitcoin corporate treasury solutions that would satisfy our operational needs and meet our corporate governance and reporting standards. We look forward to implementing this class of tools across our operations as we continue to scale up our business.”
The CEO went on to state that the company’s diversified operations offer unique management challenges, requiring the right operational tools and accounting transparency.
“This partnership with BitFury Group has the potential to grow and establish new standards for the industry,” O’Brian added.
No shortage of interest in BitGo multisig
BitGo noted that it is the only company to successfully deploy and commercialise multi-signature technology. The company has developed several products based on its multisig technology, including a multisig wallet and BitGo Enterprise.
BitGo told CoinDesk that it has seen a lot of interest in BitGo Enterprise since its launch in April. The interest is coming from a variety of verticals, including financial services, hedge funds, investors, e-commerce and bitcoin miners.
BitGo told CoinDesk:
“At this point, we’ve had over 500 companies sign up for BitGo Enterprise, we’re in the process of enrolling and qualifying them right now, they’re not all on the platform right now. But the reality is that people are realizing that this is no longer a do-it-yourself industry.”
BitGo argues that its enterprise solutions are ideally suited to companies that are looking for solutions that scale with their businesses. The company points out that many early players in bitcoin tried to develop their own security technology, often with lacklustre results.
O’Brien concluded by comparing his company to early Internet security leader VeriSign, asserting that BitGo wants to build a similar reputation for its brand.
The Bitcoin Foundation has been contacted for comment on this story but no response has been received at press time.
Image via BitGo
The news marks the venture capital firm’s second announcement in recent weeks, following confirmation that it had invested in an anonymous bitcoin wallet provider. It is unclear whether the two announcements are related.
Speaking to CoinDesk, BitGo CEO Will O’Brien elaborated on the significance of the deal, though he declined to offer any specifics.Praising BitFury as a leader in […]
