In brief
- Bottlepay has raised $15 million in seed funding.
- The company plans to hire more people and expand its geographical reach.
- Bottlepay supports Bitcoin's Lightning Network and works with popular social media platforms.
UK-based crypto payments startup Bottlepay has raised £11 million ($15 million) in seed funding.
The round’s investors include fund manager Alan Howard, venture capital firm FinTech Collective and financial services firm NYDIG, as well as current and former Goldman Sachs partners. Tech entrepreneur Phil Doye is also among the backers.
The seed round follows the launch of the Bottlepay service in the United Kingdom earlier this month.
The company said it will use the funding to hire new team members with the focus on developing the platform’s functionality. Other plans include geographical expansion of the service.
“The payments ecosystem is undergoing monumental changes as we move towards a cashless society. Today’s consumer wants to be able to transact freely and easily, without the restrictions of a traditional bank,” said Mark Webster, CEO of Bottlepay.
With this investment Bottlepay will also hope to forget some bitter memories of the past, when in December 2019 the company took a decision to shut its service down rather than become subject to the new European regulations aimed at combating money laundering (AMLD5).
Last summer, Bottlepay announced it would relaunch the platform with new functionality enabling instant payment in conventional currencies and Bitcoin. The company is part of the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s Innovation Hub.
As a basic cryptocurrency wallet, the Bottlepay app is available in both iOS and Android and is designed to integrate with social media platforms such as Twitter, Discord, and Reddit—letting you pay someone by using their social media handle. It allows users to store and transact Bitcoin both on-chain and on the Lightning Network, which is a second-layer scaling solution on top of the Bitcoin network.
The company says that its open payment system that supports Bitcoin will allow people to send, spend and receive money instantly in any part of the world. Lightning Network support also means that users can execute micropayments and make donations with as little as a penny.