etc., promising huge growth opportunities, reaching ‘second markets’ globally.
THE EMERGING DIGITAL FINANCE INVESTMENT LANDSCAPE The cornerstones for the new digital finance world are emerging, from decentralized applications to trusted computing, to currency exchanges, and to telecom, capital and banking partners. Venturescanner, in its latest analysis of the Bitcoin startup landscape, has identified 541 active companies representing 330 million USD in capital raised.
Crypto Biz Magazine Page.26 October.2014
A shortlist of current Bitcoin ecosystem investment opportunities from Venturescanner include: BITCOIN EXCHANGES: Platforms where consumers can buy or sell bitcoins, in currencies of their choice. Some play matchmaker (tracking bid/ask prices and linking up a seller with a buyer with the spreads close) while others are broker/dealers (doing matchmaking with their own inventory of bitcoins). Leading examples include Coinbase, Circle, Bitstamp and OKcoin. BITCOIN WALLETS offer consumers a place to securely store their bitcoins through public/private key encryption. Many offer enhanced security features such as cold storage, multi-step/sig authentication, and deposit insurance. Leading examples are Xapo, Coinbase, Circle and BitGo. BITCOIN PAYMENTS: Merchants and consumers pay for real-world goods/services using Bitcoin as the medium of exchange. Leading examples are Bitpay, Coinbase, Circle and vogogo. BITCOIN MINING: Includes those who either “sell the pickaxe” or “swing the pickaxe.” Typically, hardware companies selling the latest ASICs specifically designed for Bitcoin mining. Mostly conglomerates of rig operators, that have come to dominate so much of the mining activity. Active fund-seekers include BitFury, 21E6, Avalon Clones and KnCMiner. BITCOIN FINANCIAL SERVICES: Players offering typical banking services, but with a focus on bitcoins. Firms offer financial investment advice on how to manage portfolios of crypto-currencies, focusing on providing remittance payments, and providing loans
denominated in Bitcoin. Lead players include Xapo, Kraken, Vaurum and Elliptic. BITCOIN INFRASTRUCTURE: Includes those who are “building a backbone” into the Bitcoin enterprise. This cluster includes the people responsible for maintaining the open source Bitcoin code itself, offering white-label solutions (such as those for building your own exchange or wallet services), and the physical Bitcoin Automated Teller Machines (ATMs). Leading investments include Chain, Vaurum, HKCEx and Buttercoin. BITCOIN APPLICATIONS: A very broad category attempting to capture all the players that use bitcoins for a specific purpose. Includes online casinos that only gamble in bitcoins, online review sites that rate Bitcoin-related services, and aggregated lists of all the places you can spend bitcoin for physical goods. Some of the active ventures are BitcoinShop.us, UpDown, CrowdCurity and Gem. BITCOIN TRUST AND VERIFICATION SERVICES: While a lot of bitcoin transactions can be completed pseudonymously, some use cases are governed by regulations, where the identity of a person needs to be verified (anti-fraud, anti-terror financing, etc.). If a company offers these regulated services in other currencies, but also wants to accept customers who use bitcoins, they would turn to players in this cluster to provide third-party identity verification. Ventures include BlockScore, Blacklisted Bitcoins, BitGo and VerifyBTC. BITCOIN NEWS AND DATA: Organizations that offer up-to-date pricing information, original content, analytics and aggregated sources of Bitcoin-related news. Ventures include TradeBlock, BlockTrail BV, BitScan and CoinDesk. BITCOIN INVESTMENT FUNDS: Organizations that have built dedicated funds, or investment vehicles, to move large amounts of money into bitcoins themselves or into the startups building the Bitcoin ecosystem. Funds include CoinSeed, Koinify, Bitcoin Embassy and Boost Bitcoin Fund. BITCOIN SERVICES include those companies which offer business operation consulting, but with a Bitcoin focus. Includes recruiting, regulatory compliance, and technical implementation. Examples include Moneero, HoneyBadgr, CoinComply and BitRecruiter. BITCOIN BIG DATA: A core feature of Bitcoin is the public ledger (known as the blockchain), which maintains a transparent and complete record of all Bitcoin transactions. Companies in this space parse and analyze that blockchain to allow their customers to gain useful insights. Lead players include Chain, QuantaBytes, Coinalytics and Bits of Proof. Venturescanner’s estimate for the larger financial technology industry is 990 active companies, with 12.4 billion USD raised, and the Internet of Things sector, with 566 companies seeking funding, with 2.72 billion USD raised so far.