Bitcoin Startup 21 Hints Major Venture Funding.Silicon Valley startup has managed to convince some of the biggest names in business enterprise capital to support its attempt on turning the expertise behind bitcoin into a mass-marketed event during the past year and a half.
Currently named 21 Inc., the company is rising from covertness to announce the fact that it has raised around $116 million in venture funding and it is considered to be the most ever raised fund by a startup in the digital-currency division. This San Francisco Company is yet to announce the exact nature of their actions.The only thing that has been revealed by Chief Executive and co-founder Mathew Pauker, they quote, “several interesting developments over the next weeks and months” and the software and hardware products are designed “to drive mainstream adoption of bitcoin.”Bitcoin has attracted itself a wide range of fan following and media attention with its reputation as a volatile digital currency since its commencement six years ago by some unknown coder who is assumed to go under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto.The general public has henceforth ignored the controversies of verbal supporters who are publicizing the cryto currency’s potential to reduce costs by emitting out the middlemen from finance and commerce amidst all the scandals and theft stories.
Bitcoin’s startup, 21’s top investors would include the U.S. venture-capital heavyweights Andreessen Horowitz and RRE Ventures, along with Chinese private-equity firm Yuan Capital, and also a calculated wager going to Qualcomm Inc.Khosla Ventures and Data Collective have also known to have invested in 21, including the chief executives and founders from different tech firms, as well as the co founders of PayPal, Peter Thiel and Max Levchin. EBay Inc. co-founder Jeff Skoll, Dropbox Inc.
CEO Drew Houston, Expedia Inc has also given their fair share. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and Zynga Inc. co-founder Mark Pincus.The involvement of Qualcomm with 21 spurs assumptions that 21 might have its target on the “Internet of Things”, which means that a numerous number of Internet-connected appliances will communicate with servers, networks and also with each other in the future to enhance their operating system, continuation and usage of electric supple without any human involvement.Mr.
Pauker, who last month sold data-encryption firm Voltage Security Inc.to Hewlett Packard Co., has said that Qualcomm’s involvement is the main key.Previously named 21e6, the inspiration behind the name would be the 21-million limit that bitcoin’s managing algorithm enforces on the total number of bitcoins to be released.
When a dictatorial filing revealed a $5 million fundraise, it caused quite the spur as intense rumors spread in November 2013.According to co-founder Balaji Srinivasan, the initial secrecy surrounding 21 was, as he quoted “solely for pragmatic reasons”. He added, “We didn’t have anything to say to the world”; Srinivasan is also happens to be a partner at Andreessen Horowitz.He compared 21’s work in building bitcoin products with the expansion of 56-kilobit Internet modems and wireless Internet towers which all helped bring the Internet to the general public in the late 1990s.
When asked for his viewpoints on 21, Mr. Andreessen quote that it “is working on what they consider to be core infrastructure for mainstreaming bitcoin.”Coinbase unveiled the first certified U.S bitcoin currency exchange, a week after its backing announcement.
BitGo Inc later launched an exclusive insurance program while the Bitcoin Investment Trust earned approval to become the first publicly presented fund dedicated to owning bitcoin.But according to Mr. Pauker none of this will matter if bitcoin doesn’t achieve mass adoption. He quote, “Bitcoin is going to change the way that people and businesses and even machines interact with each other,”- “But for bitcoin to realize that vision we need mass adoption.
It can’t just be for Silicon Valley.”
