bitcoinmagazine.com
Bitcoin payments firm OpenNode closed an oversubscribed $20 million series A raise at a $220 million valuation, the company said in a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine.
“OpenNode has believed in the promise of Bitcoin and Lightning-powered payments for a long time, and demand is now growing exponentially,” OpenNode’s new head of strategy, Josh Held, said, per the release. “For the last two years, the team has been heads down building solutions that support some of the largest brands and businesses in the world today. This Series A funding is the next step in helping the company to realize our mission of making bitcoin payments simple and accessible for everyone, everywhere.”
Held told Bitcoin Magazine that the company plans on employing the round’s proceeds to add new products and services to its suite of offerings, including a payment wallet, an account-linked debit card, new local currency settlement options, and sub-accounts.
U.K.-based investment management firm Kingsway Capital led the investment round. Twitter, venture investor Tim Draper, and Fidelity Investments-affiliated venture capital fund Avon Ventures also participated in the round.
“Bitcoin, complemented by the Lightning Network, is going to be the most important technology for financial inclusion,” Kingsway Capital founder Manuel Stotz said, per the release. “We are very excited by OpenNode’s deployment of the Lightning Network to make the promise of bitcoin as a global, censorship resistant and permissionless payment network a reality.”
According to the release, Draper said his enthusiasm for OpenNode’s solutions stems from the empowerment of the retailer, who is relieved from having to pay hefty fees to banks or credit card companies – unavoidable in traditional payment methods.
Ester Crawford, Twitter’s group project manager, also commented on OpenNode’s round, saying that the payment processor “is creating easier pathways for anyone, anywhere to access the digital economy through their seamless integration of bitcoin payments.”