Twitter, Tim Draper and Others Invest $20M into Bitcoin-focused OpenNode

key takeaways

The round was led by United Kingdom-based firm Kingsway Capital
“The investments are a nod from people who are sought after as great investors and looking at the future of global payments,” Josh Held, head of strategy at OpenNode, told Blockworks

Bitcoin payment processor and infrastructure provider OpenNode closed an oversubscribed $20 million Series A, hitting a $220 million valuation on Wednesday, the company shared with Blockworks.

The round was led by United Kingdom-based firm Kingsway Capital with investment from Twitter, Tim Draper and Avon Ventures — a venture capital fund affiliated with the parent company of Fidelity Investments.

“The investments are a nod from people who are sought after as great investors and looking at the future of global payments,” Josh Held, head of strategy at OpenNode told Blockworks.

“For us, it emphasizes the confidence that Bitcoin is the new base layer for global payments.”

The funds will be used to invest further in its security, compliance, marketing and supporting its engineering teams, Held said.

The company, founded in 2018, is focused on building Bitcoin and Lightning Network payment infrastructure to help accelerate its growth and adoption. It provides bitcoin payment solutions like e-commerce plugins to optimize APIs for businesses and platforms like Shopify and OpenCart.

“Digital currencies encourage more people globally to participate in the economy, and with less friction,” Ester Crawford, group product manager at Twitter, said in a statement.

The firm is experiencing a “significant growth period” and has noticed an increase in demand from multinational companies and platforms, Held noted. “So for us to keep up with that demand, we needed the human capital to continue educating around the space, creating use cases and ultimately create experiences for payment companies, exchanges, digital wallets and other users,” he added.

OpenNode currently provides services in over 120 countries for over 14,000 users, according to its website. Held declined to say how many users the company plans to reach in 2022.

OpenNode aims to leverage the lightning network to continue powering payment processors and plans to focus on its addition of a wallet to further support exchanges, Held shared.

“With the wallet, we’ll be bolstering our capabilities with things like account linked debit cards, adding additional local currencies and settlement options and much, much more,” Held added.

Going forward, the company also plans to expand its outreach beyond the Bitcoin and crypto ecosystem and educating others on how this market is evolving and how they can get involved, Held said.

“We’re intending to have this platform service a range of businesses, platforms and people around the world,” Held said.

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