Fintech Bitcoin payroll startup Bitwage Ltd. has raised $750,000 in a seed round that included Orange Silicon Valley, Draper Associates, Cloud Money Ventures, Bitcoin Capital, Saeed Amidi and BnkToTheFuture.

Founded in 2013, Bitwage aims to make international payroll transfers better by reducing payroll costs and increasing transfer speeds while at the same stage increasing the visibility of the payment process.

The company allows employees to both receive a wage and pay for goods and services both in Bitcoin and local fiat currencies without the need to have a bank account to access modern financial products.

Bitwage naturally leverages the Blockchain for the service and claims they are able to deliver payments using their setup at one eigth the cost of traditional transfers while “creating a delightful experience.”

The payroll platform aggregates employee percent and wallet preferences while also integrating with traditional payroll software so the employer automatically sends out the payment in a fiat currency and then Bitwage buys and distributes the payrolls according to the preferences of employees.

“I have often wondered why people still get paid monthly even though we work nearly every day or how Google pays millions of affiliates around the world in different currencies or the best way to pay our staff in countries with currencies that are harder to acquire without paying huge fees to firms like Western Union,” BnkToTheFuture Chief Executive Officer Simon Dixon said in a statement.

“Bitcoin has the potential to solve these problems and Bitwage launched to help companies pay their global workforce faster, with cheaper fees, while making it possible to get paid in real time rather than waiting for the typical end of the month paycheck.”

Theme variation

One of the most interesting trends in fintech Bitcoin solutions in 2015 has been the emergence of various variations on the theme of payment/ remittance services.

There are plenty of startups and services out there already that facilitate person to person and company to person payments, be it via Bitcoin directly or by utilizing Blockchain tech, but Bitwage is targeting a specific niche that is payroll payments, a space that is an industry within itself even if that’s not a well-known fact.

The pitch the company puts forward is a solid one, particularly in targeting countries where traditional fiat currency financial service provision may be difficult or too costly to access.

It’s not clear from records how much Bitwage as raised in total to-date as the company took an undisclosed angel round in December 2014.

The company said it would use the new funds to expand their European operations with their bitcoin payroll and international payroll solutions as well as to continue to streamline their international payroll solutions.

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