South Korean bitcoin services company Coinplug has closed a $5m Series B funding round.

The company drew support from firms including SBI Investment raising its cumulative funding to date to $8.3m.

Joon Hyuk Park, investment director at SBI, told CoinDesk blockchain technology's potential to change legacy financial services, coupled with the team's business background and their execution capabilities had influenced his firm's decision to invest.

Ryan Uhr, Coinplug's CEO, said the funding will be used to "ramp up development of its blockchain-based services", adding:

The company, which also operates a bitcoin exchange and provides bitcoin wallets, is discussing various blockchain strategies with several banks.

Chief among these is Coinplug's new blockchain-based authentication service for which the company won 50m KRW ($45,500) at a FinTech competition, which was held in June this year and sponsored by major banking group JB Financial.

A statement issued by the company said Coinplug held patents for this kind of technology as well as a number of other blockchain systems, which it plans to sell internationally.

Coinplug's CEO concluded: "The reason we applied for patents in the first place is that we want to present our recently developed and developing blockchain-based technological services to other industries. Also, we wish that blockchain technology would become more widely used and accepted in Korea."

Dollar image via Shutterstock.