Bitnet Technologies (https://www) Bitnet’s io/), which provides a digital trading platform designed to enable corporate traders to accept bitcoin payments, today announced that it has closed $14. Series 5 million Funding round led by Highland Capital Partners In addition to Highland, new investors include Rakuten, Japan’s largest e-commerce site and one of the largest sales companies in the world. The funding comes as Bitnet launches its platform and builds sales, marketing and customer support teams. Bitnet, currently headquartered in San Francisco, California and Belfast, Northern Ireland, also plans to expand its physical presence in continental Europe and Asia. Peter Bell, Partner at Highland Capital Partners, will join the Board of Directors of Bitnet as part of the funding round.
Founded in January 2014 by John McDonnell (CEO) and Stephen McNamara (CTO), Bitnet is made up of 27 veterans of the payment industry with extensive technical and executive backgrounds at CyberSource and Visa. Bitnet’s engineering, product and business development team helped build and manage the world’s largest payment gateway, CyberSource, sold to the world’s largest payment network, Visa, for $2 billion in 2010.
Bitcoin’s promise to the founders of Bitnet as a universal payment network and currency designed for global e-commerce In a world where credit card transaction fees hit traders’ bottom lines and cross-border fees create barriers to trade, distributed trust systems like Bitcoin have the potential to disrupt established payment systems and offer significant benefits to traders and consumers. Bitcoin is open-source and decentralized, without issuing authority or centralized control, operating peer-to-peer through cash-like push transactions with no intermediary or clearing house required. With a low transaction fee of less than 1%, Bitnet will provide traders with guaranteed payment, instant global reach without cross-border charges, no price volatility, and no fraud, risk or chargebacks.
‘John, Stephen, and the team they have put together are the epitome of what we mean when we talk about partnering with innovative entrepreneurs who have the ambition to build disruptive, market-leading companies,’ said Peter Bell of Highland Capital Partners. ‘Bitnet is breaking down the barriers to digital currency transactions and has the potential to transform the way we exchange goods and services around the world. ”
Bitnet distinguishes between digital business platforms with a deep understanding, gained by the CyberSource team over the years, of the needs of business traders, developers and partners, and by providing technology that delivers the level of reliability and functionality that they require. Businesses dealing with a high volume of payment transactions and complex back-end financial applications need a bitcoin payment platform that they can trust and rely on. Large retailers have already demonstrated demand for Bitnet’s solution, which allows Bitcoin to be accepted at a scale of 99. 999% reliability and risk-free—and built to interface with the systems already in place for retailers.
‘We’re listening to the world’s largest merchants,’ said John McDonnell, Co-Founder & CEO, Bitnet. ‘Many of these larger companies have looked at existing solutions and have remained on the sidelines—so far. With Bitnet, we are building the integrations, systems and technologies that multinational retailers and travel companies need in order to accept Bitcoin. It is important for them to be scalable and integrated with existing payment systems and trading platforms. Uptime is crucial, as are integrated reporting and reconciliation capabilities Bitnet removes the risk of accepting Bitcoin, allowing traders to make payments with zero liability—no fraud, no refunds, and no false declines. Bitcoin is digital cash and is the first payment system specifically developed for the Internet. Merchants appreciate that, and understandably, they’re very excited. ”
Bitnet’s platform includes developer-focused RESTful hypermedia APIs and SDKs, easy-to-implement hosted checkout products, and pre-built integrations to key third party software systems. Bitnet will also provide advanced analytics with programmatic access to reports designed to help automated merchant reconciliation within their accounting and ERP systems.
In addition to large retailers, Bitnet works with financial institutions, payment service providers, international trade organizations and airlines to provide Bitnet’s reliable, high-volume Bitcoin payment acceptance solution.
Together with Rakuten, the co-investors in this Series A round include FinTech and cryptocurrency experts: the Web Investment Network, founded by Maynard Webb (Yahoo and Visa Board Member); the Bitcoin Opportunity Corp. (Barry Silbert); Stephens Investment Management (Bart and Brad Stephens); Commerce Ventures (Dan Rosen); Buchanan Capital Management (Tad Buchanan); venture capitalist Stuart Peterson; Bill McKiernan, president and founder of CyberSource; Carl Pascarella, former CEO of Visa; and Jack McDonnell, founder of TNS
On the Bitnet
Bitnet provides a digital trading platform that enables enterprise traders to accept bitcoin payments Bitnet’s engineering, product and business development team helped build and manage the world’s largest payment gateway, CyberSource, sold to the world’s largest payment network, Visa, for $2 billion in 2010. Bitnet has offices in San Francisco, California, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Visit https://www for more information Bitnet’s Oh, Io
About the Highland Capital Partner
Founded in 1988, Highland Capital Partners is a global venture capital firm that focuses on putting an entrepreneur first. With offices in Silicon Valley, Boston and Shanghai, Highland has raised more than $3 billion in committed capital and invested in more than 225 companies, resulting in category-defining enterprises across consumer and enterprise technology sectors. Investments include 2U, Ask Jeeves, Bromium, Gigamon, Leap Motion, LevelUp, Lycos, MapQuest, Nebula, QD Vision, Qihoo 360, Quattro Wireless, RentJuice, Rent the Runway, Starent Networks, Sybase, Violine Memory, VistaPrint and WePay.
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