Seoul-based Korbit has secured $3 million in a Series A funding round led by SoftBank Ventures Korea.
Korbit is like a Coinbase for Korea, offering a wallet, merchant services and a Bitcoin exchange. It says to support 25,000 user accounts and 400 merchant accounts.
Other participants in the round included: Pantera Capital, which led the round from the US side, BAM Ventures, Bitcoin Opportunity Corp, Tim Draper, Pietro Dova and Strong Ventures.
Softbank specializes in IT startup investment and corporate restructuring. It is described to envision "a world where everyone is happily connected to each other via digital networks." Said Partner Kangjoon Ryan Lee :
"The costs and security issues arising from the reliance on financial intermediaries for credit guarantees has been mitigated through Bitcoin's technological innovation. Bitcoin provides big advantages in terms of cost savings and ease of use compared to traditional currencies and credit cards."
Thus, the achievements made by Bitcoin can have profound impacts on other industries:
"I expect Bitcoin to create meaningful markets in Payments and international remittance. Going forward, Bitcoin can play a role in wider variety of industries, for example enabling machine-to-machine transactions or acting as a platform for smart contracts."
Korbit introduced Bitcoin to Korea last year when it opened its Bitcoin-Korean Won exchange service.
The funding will be used to improve security and ease of use, and bring in top talent.
