Ciphrex Raises $500k to Advance Multisig Wallet Offering

Cryptocurrency security firm Ciphrex has raised $500,000 in a Series-A funding round to advance its multisig wallet and other products.

AccessTimeIconJan 15, 2015 at 5:10 p.m. UTC
Updated Aug 18, 2021 at 3:34 p.m. UTC

Presented By Icon

Election 2024 coverage presented by

Stand with crypto

Cryptocurrency security firm Ciphrex has completed a successful A-Series funding round, raising $500,000 (£327,934)

Six accredited investors took part in the round, according to the company, but they wished their participation to remain private.

  • Bitcoin Mining in the U.S. Will Become 'a Lot More Decentralized': Core Scientific CEO
    13:18
    Bitcoin Mining in the U.S. Will Become 'a Lot More Decentralized': Core Scientific CEO
  • Binance to Discontinue Its Nigerian Naira Services After Government Scrutiny
    05:10
    Binance to Discontinue Its Nigerian Naira Services After Government Scrutiny
  • The first video of the year 2024
    04:07
    The first video of the year 2024
  • The last regression video of the year 3.67.0
    40:07
    The last regression video of the year 3.67.0
  • Enrique Lombrozo, co-CEO and chief operations officer, said:

    “We are glad to announce we’ve met our goal of raising half-a-million dollars in this initial round. We raised $300k immediately, back in October 2014, and then we raised the remaining $200k in the last few weeks. These funds will allow us to further advance, promote and expand our line of products.”

    Ciphrex's product line includes mSIGNA and CoinSocket. The former is a multisig wallet application which supports offline keychain generation, offline signing, multi-device synchronisation, account management and multiple blockchains.

    The wallet works in conjunction with CoinSocket, an application development platform that allows the secure management of multisig accounts for businesses. 

    When asked about his recent fundraising efforts, Lombrozo said:

    "We feel fantastic! That's all we need to get us to round B. We are working on our business plan for the next stage and will be ready to offer a Series-B in the next few months."

    Bitcoin draws venture capital

    The news comes after CoinDesk's State of Bitcoin report found that bitcoin venture capital investment surpassed that of early stage Internet investment last year.

    BitPay and Blockchain both completed successful A-rounds in 2014, respectively raising $30m and $30.5m in May and October. Notably, the Blockchain round was the largest ever single investment made in a bitcoin company.

    In total, bitcoin firms raised $314.7m in 2014, representing a 3.3-fold increase over the previous year.

    North America, which has been receiving venture capital investment in bitcoin since 2012/13, is still the place to be for startups trying to raise cash.

    The growth of multisig

    After many notable hacks in the space, a high emphasis is currently being placed on security when it comes to bitcoin storage.

    Multisig is increasingly being seen as a more secure option since, rather than merely requiring a single password, it needs 'm of n' keys to authorise a transaction. 'M of n' might be two of three, or three of five, or more, depending on the levels of security required.

    When Ethereum recently required a more secure solution for storing bitcoins raised in their crowdsale, the decision was taken to use Ciphrex's multisig solution.

    When asked about the issue, Lombrozo commented:

    "Security is the primary concern for financial transactions. Ciphrex's platform provides a general m-of-n multisig account management architecture supporting bitcoin and other altcoins."

    Will O'Brien, CEO and co-founder of BitGo, a bitcoin security company and pioneer in multi-signature technologies, examined bitcoin security trends in a previous CoinDesk article and noted that "2014 was a pivotal year in bitcoin security" due to the wider acceptance of multisig.

    He pointed out that there had been a 79-fold increase in daily multisig transactions over the last year and that exchanges had now started to adopt the technology.

    However, "we still need more adoption of multisig as an industry", he concluded.

    Funding image via Shutterstock

    Disclosure

    Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information have been updated.

    CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of the Bullish group, which owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish group equity-based compensation. Bullish was incubated by technology investor Block.one.


    Learn more about Consensus 2024, CoinDesk's longest-running and most influential event that brings together all sides of crypto, blockchain and Web3. Head to consensus.coindesk.com to register and buy your pass now.