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Bitnet Technologies Raises $14.5 Million in Series A Funding Round

Mobile Commerce Insider Featured Article

October 20, 2014

Bitnet Technologies Raises $14.5 Million in Series A Funding Round

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By Clayton Hamshar
Contributing Writer

Bitnet Technologies, a digital commerce platform for enterprise-scale merchants that want to accept Bitcoin payments, announced that it has closed its Series A funding round with $14.5 million raised. The round was led by Highland Capital Partners (News - Alert) and Japan’s largest e-commerce site Rakuten was another major new investor.


The company was founded in January 2014 by John McDonnell (CEO) and Stephen Mc Namara (CTO) with a team of industry veterans boasting impressive technical and executive backgrounds, mainly at CyberSource (News - Alert) and Visa. The funding comes as Bitnet launches its platform and builds international teams for sales, marketing and customer support in North America, Europe and Asia.

Bitnet’s platform is designed for large clients with a high volume of payment transactions and complex back-end financial application, interfacing easily with systems already in place. The solution offers 99.99 percent reliability without risk and eliminates pesky credit card transaction fees and international cross-border fees. Bitcoin, as a decentralized and open-source payment system, provides retailers with an instant global reach and no price volatility, fraud, risk or chargebacks.

CEO John McDonnell commented:

“We are listening to the world’s largest merchants. Many of these bigger companies have looked at existing solutions and have remained on the sidelines – until now. With Bitnet, we’re building the integrations, systems and technologies that multi-national retailers and travel companies need in order to accept Bitcoin. Being scalable and integrating with existing payment systems and commerce platforms are what’s important to them. Uptime is critical, as are integrated reporting and reconciliation capabilities. Bitnet removes the risk of accepting Bitcoin, allowing merchants to take payments with zero liability – no fraud, no chargebacks, and no false declines. Bitcoin is digital cash, and it’s the first payment system specifically developed for the Internet. Merchants appreciate that, and they’re understandably very excited.”

The platform includes developer-focused RESTful hypermedia application programming interfaces (API) and software development kits (SDK), a simple hosted Checkout product and integrations with the biggest third party software systems. Bitnet will offer advanced analytics to help automate merchant reconciliation within their accounting and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

Although focused chiefly on large retailers, Bitnet is also working with financial institutions, payment service providers, international trade organizations and airlines.

“John, Stephen, and the team they have assembled 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 of digital currency transactions and has the potential to transform the way we exchange goods and services around the world.”

Additional co-investors in the Series A funding round include FinTech, Webb Investment Network, Bitcoin Opportunity Corp., Stephens Investment Management, Commerce Ventures, Buchanan Capital Management, venture capitalist Stuart Peterson, Bitnet chairman and CyberSource founder Bill McKiernan, former Visa CEO Carl Pascarella and TNS (News - Alert) founder Jack McDonnell.




Edited by Maurice Nagle


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