Bitcoin Blockchain powered remittance app maker Abra, Inc. has raised $12 million Series A in a round that included Arbor Ventures, RRE Ventures, and First Round Capital.

Founded in 2014, Abra wants to “take cash mobile” with what they claim is a world’s first digital cash, peer to peer money transfer network.

The Abra system facilitates peer to peer money transfer through an app that allows anyone to store digital cash, valued in any currency, directly on their phone with no bank required; users are then able to send cash instantly to anyone with a smartphone, anywhere in the world.

Unlike similar services such as those provided by Coins.ph, the end of the transfer is facilitated by the what the company calls Abra Tellers, who can either be businesses, but more interestingly individuals as well who act to facilitate the buying and selling of digital cash; the theory is that by tapping into individuals as middlemen, for lack of a better term, financial services will be more accessible for consumers while at the same time creating new business opportunities as tellers are able to charge a small amount for facilitating the transaction.

Abra has already made waves having won the Launch Festival in March as Best Overall Company, and since that time has been testing its services; the company isn’t clear on when it will be properly launching and where, saying only that it “will soon announce the general availability of the Abra App in its initial launch markets.”

“Arbor sees huge potential for the Abra business model globally, but especially in China and Southeast Asia, which are traditionally large cash economies but leapfrogging into mobile payments and bypassing traditional banking and card infrastructure at an accelerating rate,” Wei Hopeman of Arbor Ventures said in a statement. “Making cash mobile will unlock a lot of opportunities in these markets and across the region.”

Interesting idea with some issues

What Abra is offering is not so much revolutionary but a variation on an existing theme, one as we mentioned is already being utilized by companies such Coins.ph, but with individuals thrown in for good measure.

The use of individuals broadly sounds like a good idea, and the ability for those “tellers” to charge for providing the service will make for decent business opportunities; that said there are regulatory and security risks with doing so.

Security is the obvious one up front: individuals who meet others to collect money could easily be mugged or even attacked for the money they are facilitating; there’s a reason why banks and retailers have security systems.

The less obvious one is the regulatory issues perhaps not so much in third world and developing countries, but first world ones.

For example in Australia any person operating as an Abra Teller would likely need to hold at the very least a financial services license, and variations on those sorts of legal requirements would be similar elsewhere across Western countries as well.

The last potential problem is with the focus and market understanding: Abra itself doesn’t say that they are primarily focused on China and South East Asia, but one of the investors does (see aforementioned quote) along with the suggestion that those markets are “bypassing traditional banking and card infrastructure at an accelerating rate.”

About that… it’s complete rubbish.

In a country like Thailand the only thing more prevalent than 7-Eleven’s (they’re everywhere) is ATM’s, Vietnam has one of the most competitive banking markets on the planet (in terms of the number of competitors,) the rest of South East Asia, with the notable exception of the Philippines, is the same; there was even an ATM at the casino in the middle of the rebel held part of the Golden Triangle I visited in Burma earlier this year.

There are definitely markets out there that could use a service like this, and I guess if you’re out in a rice paddy with your water buffalo in rural Isan, Thailand, you might have use for the service, but the company is doing it wrong if it truly believes most of South East Asia doesn’t use traditional banking services.

Including the new round Abra has raised $14 million to-date; other investors in the company include Blockchain Capital, Carthona Capital, Cyanotype, Digital Currency Group, Future Perfect Ventures, Haystack, Jungle Ventures, The Launch Fund, Lehrer Hippeau Ventures, Liberty City Ventures, NYCA, and Pantera Capital.

Image credit: Abra.