A tech firm based in Newcastle (UK) has just raised USD 2 million to develop an app that lets users send money using Bitcoin via social media.
The owner of the firm called Block Matrix made the platform called Bottle Pay to send and receive payments with the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The company was founded by Pete Cheyne who said:
“We are trying to break down the barriers to allow everyone to use Bitcoin. Our initial focus will be Bottle. That is where we raised the seed fund from, off the back of the product.”
He went on to say “What we want to do is to let people authenticate into the app with an account they already have and trust. It is for those who are not familiar with Bitcoin, to build up that trust.
“We allow people to fund anyone on a social network and send them Bitcoin. As an example The Rock is on Twitter. I can send The Rock Bitcoin even if he doesn’t have an account. I can send him 100 Satochi, which is a denomination of Bitcoin. If he logs in he can see it is from me and collect that Bitcoin.”
“We have tried to streamline it and make it like a chat message.”
The money will be used to expand the team from five so far to eight. With the rest of the cash being used for product development. The plan is to push for more funding when they have a more secure and fluid product. At the moment they already have an impressive 11k users but they plan to hit 100,000 over the next year and one billion beyond that. If they manage to pull it off it will be a great product and one that will be used by many users.
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