UPDATED 02:37 EDT / SEPTEMBER 09 2015

NEWS

Bitcoin bonanza: cryptocurrency exchange service ShapeShift raises a $1.6m seed round

Cryptocurrency exchange service ShapeShift AG has raised seed funding of $1.6 million in a round led by Digital Currency Group and Roger Ver that included Bitfinex, Bitcoin Capital, Mardal Investments, along with Bruce Fenton, Trevor Koverko and Michael Terpin.

Founded in August 2014, ShapeShift enables the immediate exchange of digital assets including Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies, and tokens.

Unlike others in the space the company doesn’t require users to have accounts, leading to what it claims are far faster, more convenient liquidity for digital assets, while vastly improving consumer protections; in offering a “non-custodial” account free environment it doesn’t hold customer funds, therefore providing protection from hacking.

“Most exchanges hold customer funds and extract personal information, which is an archaic and insecure model,” Founder and Chief Executive Officer Erik Voorhees told SiliconANGLE back in June. “Mt. Gox was a teachable moment for everyone in the Bitcoin community and ShapeShift has innovated these problems out of the picture.”

“We are both faster and more secure. This is real consumer protection—no funds or sensitive information is stored on our servers nor on the user’s phone in case it is damaged, destroyed or stolen. Digital currency has brought to humanity a more secure infrastructure, and so we build in that spirit.”

Numbers

Numbers for the ShapeShift are impressive given they’ve only just celebrated their first birthday: the exchange has registered 100 times growth in recent months, having achieved over the equivalent of over $2 million in trades in July.

Currently the site supports 40 leading digital currencies and assets including Bitcoin, Counterparty, Ripple, Monero, and Ethereum, with over 940 direct trading pairs supported, a number that is claimed to be more than any other exchange.

“ShapeShift demonstrated an entirely new way to think about asset exchange,” Bitfinex Director of Community and Product Development Zane Tackett said in a statement sent to SiliconANGLE. “It’s like Google Translate for digital currencies. We’ve known Erik for a while now and he’s knocked it out of the park with this one. We’re very excited about the partnership.”

Including the new round, ShapeShift has raised $2.39 million to-date.

The company said it would use the new funding to support development, improve liquidity and enable further scalability.

Image credit: ShapeShift/ screenshot

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