South African-founded global blockchain payments company, Centbee last week scored an additional R17 million from Ayre Ventures to scale up its payments wallet business.
The company on Friday announced the closure of its pre-Series A round with entrepreneur Calvin Ayre, founder of Ayre Ventures.
Now headquartered in London, with offices in South Africa, Centbee was founded in 2017 by co-CEOs, Lorien Gamaroff and Angus Brown.
Gamaroff is an expert in blockchain technologies and crypto-currencies, with years of experience, which include advising regulators and corporates internationally.
Brown has 20 years of experience in payments and banking, including the role of CEO of eBucks.com, a world-first bank-backed digital currency created in 2000.
Centbee offers a digital wallet that features peer-to-peer payments, merchant payments banking, and cross-border remittances for crypto-currencies, enabling users to send, receive and store digital currencies.
Commenting on the new funds, Ayre whose Ayre Ventures first invested in Centbee in 2019 says: “My faith in Centbee has been rewarded through Angus and Lorien’s ongoing commitment to making Bitcoin – the original protocol in the form of BSV – easily usable and accessible to everyone. Unlike other blockchains, BSV is focused on utility, not speculation, and Centbee is working hard to further Bitcoin’s adoption as a true peer-to-peer electronic cash system.”
Centbee co-CEO, Lorien Gamaroff, says: “We have the right vision, products and team to drive exponential growth for our investors. Consumers around the world are looking for better, easier ways to pay, and our blockchain-based payment wallet does just that. Our latest feature, ChatPay, makes it easy to send money via an in-wallet chat application.”
Brown, Centbee co-CEO adds: “Centbee has a suite of digital cash products and services that make payments easy, even cross-border. Our cross-border remittance service, Minit Money, enables people to move money simply and cheaply across borders to support family and friends and has already processed over 35 000 remittances into Africa. The investment by Ayre Group will be used for scaling and growth as well as strengthening technical and operating capacity.”
The Centbee and Minit Money apps are available in the Apple Store, Google Play store and Huawei app gallery.
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