Bitcoin payment startup OpenNode raises $20 million in a Series A funding round led by Kingsway Capital.
OpenNode Provides Bitcoin And Lightning Payments Infrastructure
Founded in 2018, OpenNode is the world’s leading bitcoin payment processor and infrastructure provider. OpenNode offers bitcoin payment acceptance and payout solutions for businesses, platforms, and people everywhere. It offers payment buttons, hosted checkout, e-commerce plug-ins, and optimized APIs to enable instant, low cost payments by Bitcoin, the world’s best decentralized payment network; and the Lightning Network, Bitcoin’s leading scaling solution.
OpenNode Series A Funding
OpenNode latest funidng round was oversubscribed. The Bitcoin payment firm secured $20 million in Series A at a $220 million valuation. The Series A was led by UK-based firm Kingsway Capital, and with additional investment from Twitter, Tim Draper, and Avon Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with the parent company of Fidelity Investments.
Commenting on the Series A Funding, Josh Held, new Head of Strategy at OpenNode, said:
“OpenNode has believed in the promise of Bitcoin and Lightning-powered payments for a long time, and demand is now growing exponentially. 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”
Comments From Investors
Twitter ups its Bitcoin quotient by joining OpenNode as a new investor. Ester Crawford, Twitter Group Product Manager, said:
“Digital currencies encourage more people globally to participate in the economy, and with less friction. OpenNode is creating easier pathways for anyone, anywhere to access the digital economy through their seamless integration of bitcoin payments.”
Tim Draper mentioned that OpenNode’s solution enables businesses to accept Bitcoin payments without paying the banks or the credit card companies 2%-4% in transaction fees. “OpenNode can do it with only a fraction of the energy cost required for an on-chain bitcoin transaction,” Tim added.
Manuel Stotz, Founder of Kingsway Capital, the lead investor of OpenNode’s Series A, commented:
“Bitcoin, complemented by the Lightning Network, is going to be the most important technology for financial inclusion. 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.”
“OpenNode provides businesses, platforms, and people the easiest onramp into the burgeoning digital economy, enabling seamless integration of bitcoin across the payment stack,” states Sachin Patodia, Fidelity Investments Managing Director. “We are proud to participate in this funding round and contribute to the growth of OpenNode and the Bitcoin network.”
OpenNode will use the new funds to advance its Bitcoin and Lightning Network payments infrastructure aimed at catalyzing Bitcoin’s global adoption.
OpenNode is enabling businesses to process Bitcoin payments. The Bitcoin payment firm has a long list of clients, such as metals supplier Midwest Tungsten, English Football Club Real Bedford, online publishing platform Substack, and Crazy Horse 3 – a Strip Club in Las Vegas.
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