Japanese Sony Corp invests heavily in cryptocurrency platform Bitwala

• Sony Financial Ventures participates in Bitwala’s Seriece A investment round.
• The platform aims to expand its business and add functionality to the platform.

The Japanese corporation Sony and an investment company NKB GROUP led a Series A financing round of the bitcoin banking platform Bitwala. The companies jointly invested 13 million euro (about $14.5 million) in the platform. This financing round marks the largest investment in Germany-based cryptocurrency, according to Bitwala’s statement.

Early investors in the platform – Earlybird and Coparion – were among other participants of the financing round.

The company says that the raised funds will be used to expand the user base and increase staff, as well as to launch corporate Bitcoin accounts.

In December 2018, Bitwala officially launched its updated cryptocurrency service, offering users a single bank account both for Bitcoin (BTC) and fiat currencies.  The partnership with solarisBank will allow the platform users trading Bitcoin directly from their accounts.

“Here at Bitwala, we are hard-at-work promoting the adoption of bitcoin, with simplicity and accessibility being our main focus. The Bitwala account, being the world’s first to combine bitcoin and banking, solves just that for thousands of people across Europe, and we’re only just getting started,” the company states.

Currently, the platform is available of the residents of all 31 countries of the European Economic Area. In 2019, the volume of bitcoin exchange transactions amounted to 11 million euros.

Earlier, Bitwala announced the business restructuring, because its bank accounts were closed, while services related to the issuance and servicing of prepaid cards were suspended.

Before that, the company received a venture capital investment of 800 000 euros to develop the payment system, expand the team, and build the customer base. Despite the dire conditions, Bitwala received $4 million in the course of the next round of investment in September 2018.