What an incredible journey.
Running a startup is not easy and few of them actually make it. Bitwala’s journey is far from over, but today we can take a breath and celebrate an incredible milestone: our company’s Series A.
Bitwala has always been the bridge
When I first walked into a Berlin co-working space in 2013, Bitcoin was €60 and no-one had heard of it. In fact, we were the first German language Bitcoin blog.
6 years later, things couldn’t be more different as the blockchain economy and ecosystem have flourished and developed beyond recognition.
Bitwala started off as a humble shopping site that let you buy anything online with bitcoin. Our customers wanted to do more with their crypto and so we launched Bitwala 1.0 where customers could make bank transfers and get a pre-paid debit card. In December we launched the world’s first crypto bank account.
Spending crypto 👉 Banking services with crypto 👉 A Crypto bank account
Bitcoin and euro. Crypto and fiat. Decentralised and Traditional finance. However you look at it, Bitwala has always been the bridge.
What the Series A means
Fundraising takes a lot of time and energy, especially from management.
This €13m round will mean that we can focus on building an awesome team to build an awesome product.
We offer crypto bank accounts so trust is our most important long term goal. For this reason, we need to ensure very high standards of security, reliability and quality in our product. At the same time, we have a first-mover advantage and need to push hard to make the most of that.
How do you achieve both speed and quality? There’s only one way: increase capacity.
We’ll be expanding our team aggressively over the next year, especially the engineering, product and customer service chapters.
If you share our vision of finance, please consider working with us.
My deepest thanks to everyone involved
This was only possible because of a bunch of some of the most brave and talented people I’ve ever met.
Thank you to the investors
- The new investors, NKB and Global Brain, for believing in our vision
- The old investors, EarlyBird, Coparion, for contributing to this round, and Alstin and HTGF and the angel investors for their continued support
Thank you to the supporters
- Our advisors, Chris, Niels, Andreas and Roman, for never losing faith in us
- The legal teams for terrific work done fast
- The family, partners and friends of the Bitwala team — your patience and support is much appreciated!
Thank you to the customers
- The guys who make it all possible by trusting us with their business and giving us feedback
Thank you to the team
- My co-founders, Jörg and Jan, for the vast amounts of determination that were necessary over the years
- The other C-Levels, Christoph and Philipp, for jumping in head first
- Robert and the fundraising team, who did a truly spectacular job bringing this together
- Every employee, intern and working student who was crazy enough to take a bet on a young startup and help build what Bitwala has become today
Watching this company grow has been one of the most humbling experiences in my life. I can’t wait to see what we can achieve in the next 12 months.
👋 Hi, I’m Ben, hippie-turned-entrepreneur. I co-founded the blockchain bank Nuri, raised $50m in funding and grew it to over 100 people.
Now I coach ambitious VC-backed founders. Read about my coaching for founders.
