Bitcoin platform CoinJar secures first major investment in Australia

The Bitcoin exchange and wallet service CoinJar just secured a round of equity investment, worth $500,000 AUD, granted by several prominent Australian technology investors.

Blackbird Ventures, headed by Niki Scevak, is leading the investment, which also includes entrepreneurs such as Torsten Hoffman, Guy King and Bevan Clark. The game developer Rob Murray and the serial technology investor Chris Hitchen are also part of the group, according to a press release.

The platform, managed from Melbourne and created by Asher Tan and Ryan Zhou, allows users to buy and sell Bitcoins, making transactions easier and also helping merchants to accept cryptocurrency. But this investment promises to boost CoinJar services and make every Bitcoin-related transaction more simple, says Chris Hitchen:

Bitcoin is a game-changer, but the process of buying, selling and using Bitcoin is still relatively hard. CoinJar changes that by making Bitcoin more accessible and, eventually much more useful.

Their approach of offering a secure consumer wallet and merchant payment capability for bitcoin in addition to a liquid exchange is what makes them interesting; as consumer and business adoption of Bitcoin becomes more mainstream, CoinJar is well-placed to be a significant participant. The team, product and vision are all strong and I’m excited to be involved.

With this investment, the Australian exchange plans to make the most of the recent Bitcoin wave that is bringing more and more users to the community, mainly thanks to the massive interest of Asian countries like China and Singapore and the consequent price increase.

“Bitcoin is moving past a purely speculative play. It is only a matter of time until business and consumers take full advantage of Bitcoin as a solution to digital payments“, says Asher Tan, co-founder and CEO of CoinJar, which already works with several companies and services providers like the Australian utility vehicle producer Tomcar or the Aussie crowdfunding platform Pozible.

CoinJar currently has more than 10,000 clients in Australia, but wants to expand globally and this investment could be the perfect incentive to make it happen.