Boston serial entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire's latest venture just landed serious funding. Digital currency management startup Circle raised $17 million on Thursday to expand its service and offer up its product to Bitcoin believers.
The round was led by Breyer Capital, Accel Partners and General Catalyst Partners as well as new investor Oak Investment Partners. Others included Pantera Capital, Circle board member M. Michele Burns and Fenway Summer.
Circle, which intends to simplify the process of exchanging and paying with digital currencies, came out of stealth in fall 2013 with a fresh round of Series A worth $9 million.
Little is to be shared of the company's actual business strategy, however. Circle will release the first of its product to a select number of users this week, but won't make the product available till later. The founder and CEO Allaire told GigaOm that the team is focused on strengthening the technical and security aspects of the company's services, so as to avoid the blunders and breaches of other startups within the space.
“We are thrilled to have such a strong showing of support and vote of confidence from world-class investors and strategic individuals as we move into the commercial phase of Circle,” said Allaire in a statement. “With accelerating consumer and business interest in digital currency all around the world, it’s critical that we have the capital and leadership team to execute on our vision for consumer finance and global payments built on Bitcoin.”
Circle rivals Coinbase, the other main digital currency management system that raised $20 million in early December. Interestingly, Coinbase and Circle share an investor in prominent VC Andreessen Horowitz.
Image via BusinessWeek
