Kleiner Perkins Makes First Bitcoin Startup Investment in Align Commerce

Align Commerce, a San Francisco, Calif. -based cross-border payments service provider that exchanges a payer's fiat currency into bitcoin, then exchanges it into the payee's currency, has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, according to today's Wall Street Journal. Align Commerce's money transfer model avoids the "cumbersome" bank wire process for payments, according to CEO Marwan Forzley, who started the company after serving as general manager at Western Union. The company can also offer features like tracking fund movement in real time and....

Blockchain payments startup Align Commerce has raised $12.5m in Series A funding led by storied Silicon Valley investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB). Rounding out the all-star cast of investors were first-time and repeat firms including Digital Currency Group, FS Venture Capital, Pantera Capital, Recruit Ventures Partners and SVB Ventures, the investment arm of Silicon Valley Bank. Founded by Marwan Forzley, a former Western Union general manager, Align Commerce is seeking to disrupt the small business (SMB) cross-border payments market, one it believes is characterized....

In April, Bitcoin Magazine reported that global payment provider Align Commerce launched a public beta of its payments platform, the first in the industry to use the Bitcoin blockchain transparently to enable faster and cheaper global payments. Transactions appear as traditional payments at both the sending and the receiving end, but Align Commerce pipes the transfer through the blockchain instead of using several intermediate banking relays, halving both time and cost of traditional international wire transfers. Now Align Commerce announced that it has raised a $12.5 million Series A....

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the oldest and most storied venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, has named a bitcoin startup founder to the staff of its new seed-stage fund. Called the Edge Fund, the early-stage operation will provide investments of $250,000 to help selected startups with development, programming and recruiting. Targets for the $4m fund reportedly include a full range of emerging technologies including virtual reality, digital health and the blockchain. According to The New York Times, the venture is the brainchild of Kleiner Perkins partners Anjney Midha and....

As one of the oldest and most established venture capital firms in the US, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), has had a helping hand in mainstreaming technologies from IT to biotech since its founding in 1972. While Kleiner Perkins hasn't yet invested in a bitcoin or blockchain company, it's likely it will soon do so via its newest fund, KPCB Edge. The seed-stage investment firm, announced 16th June and launched with a $4m budget, will have blockchain technology as one of its six core areas of focus. Leading KPCB's exploration will be founding partner Anjney Midha, the firm's....