South African bitcoin startup Centbee has closed a Series A funding round worth US$1.3 million to help it further develop its product and scale.
Launched in 2016 by co-CEOs, Lorien Gamaroff and Angus Brown, Centbee launched its bitcoin cash wallet to market late last year, allowing users to send bitcoin cash directly to their phone contacts.
The startup has now raised funding from with entrepreneur Calvin Ayre, founder of Antigua-based investment firm Ayre Ventures, and CoinGeek, with the deal facilitated by nChain, a leading blockchain advisory, research and development firm which previously took an equity stake in Centbee in January 2018.
“Centbee has a track record of making bitcoin easily usable and accessible to everyone including merchants and consumers. They support the original bitcoin protocol in the form of bitcoin SV, and have demonstrated an extraordinary ability to attract users and we’re proud to support their further growth,” Ayre said.
Brown said Centbee had made it easy for customers to buy bitcoin SV easily at over 50,000 till points in South Africa.
“Through this, we will help people move money simply and cheaply across borders to support family and friends. The investment will be used for product development, scaling and growth,” he said.
Gamaroff said he was pleased with the progress made over the last few months at Centbee.
“Our development roadmap is well defined with exciting payment and remittance products coming to market this year. We look forward to the next phase in our growth and development,” he said.
