UPDATE (14 January 2015 13:00 BST): Article has been updated to reflect crowdfunding breakdown.
Bitreserve has closed its crowdfunding campaign after raising over $9m.
The final total of $9,620,802 (£6,363,024) was reached after 157 investors bought 11.27% of the equity offered. Crowdcube investors raised $739,219 (£489,744) whilst the remaining $8,911,645 (£5,873,280) was contributed by a combination of Venovate and institutional investors. The crowdfunding activity on Venovate amounted to $126,000 (£83,020) whilst the remaining balance of $8.7m (£5.7m) came from institutional investors.
Tim Parsa, Bitreserve’s president of global strategy and markets said:
“It’s been a real pleasure interacting with the savvy Crowdcube and Venovate investor. Raising venture capital has been secretive and elitist for far too long. We share Crowdcube and Venovate’s commitment to transparency and inclusiveness.”
He went on to say he is proud to welcome so many new investors to the “Bitreserve family”.
Twin platforms
The company had decided to list its equity offering on two separate platforms in a bid to ease the investment process for its members.
Crowdcube was used by UK-based members, while Venovate was the chosen platform for those who qualified as ‘accredited’ under US securities law.
The bitcoin storage platform has confirmed that its capital injection will be used to expand its engineering team, increase corporate hiring and support its international expansion.
‘Medieval’ system
While promoting its transparency features, including live accounting of its assets and obligations to its users, Bitreserve said that the opportunity to invest in the company “should not be limited to a few wealthy individuals or well-connected venture capital funds”.
In an earlier interview with CoinDesk, Bitreserve founder and CEO Halsey Minor explained that the company’s decision to finance through crowdfunding platforms was a “supplement” to other fundraising efforts.
“It is also an attempt to address the limited investment opportunities available to the general public for technology companies like this,” he said. “People should have a right to invest in innovation. There are so many things that are just fundamentally flawed. It’s like the finance system is still medieval”.