South African-based Bitcoin company Centbee has closed its Series A round with entrepreneur Calvin Ayre, founder of Antigua-based investment firm Ayre Ventures and CoinGeek.
Ayre, who has invested £1-million (R18,3-million), comments: “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.”
The deal was facilitated by nChain, a blockchain advisory, research and development firm, which previously took an equity stake in Centbee in January 2018.
Jimmy Nguyen, chair of nChain Group’s strategic advisory board and founding president of the Bitcoin Association, which advances Bitcoin SV’s global ecosystem, says: “Centbee has one of the most user-friendly Bitcoin wallets and merchant payment solutions we have seen. It is built using the original Bitcoin protocol, now alive only in the form of Bitcoin SV, which has a plan for massive blockchain scaling. This enables Centbee to offer low fees and fast transaction speeds. We will continue to work with Centbee as it sparks greater merchant and consumer adoption of Bitcoin BSV in Africa and worldwide.”
Ayre’s investment is part of a broader collaboration to advance the Bitcoin SV ecosystem. nChain will also support Centbee with its technical consulting services and access to its intellectual property portfolio, which is aimed at benefiting growth of the BSV blockchain.
Centbee is a Bitcoin wallet provider that makes it easy for consumers to acquire, store and spend Bitcoin with retailers and other merchants.
Based in South Africa, Centbee was founded by co-CEOs, Lorien Gamaroff and Angus Brown.