Relai, a Switzerland-based app designed to make bitcoin investing simple in Europe, has announced a raise of 2.5 million Swiss francs (roughly $2.778 million) in series A funding led by Swiss venture capital firm Redalpine.
“The capital injection will be used to build the leading bitcoin broker in Europe and obtain a financial intermediary license,” according to a Relai press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine. “The new financing round will enable Relai to build a proprietary broker for efficient order processing and provide new offerings for investors who are looking to buy large amounts of bitcoin.”
In addition to Redalpine, Polytech Ventures, Fulgur Ventures and ACE & Company contributed to the series A.
Relai was launched in July 2020 and, according to the release, has been downloaded more than 23,000 times and is being actively used by more than 10,000 customers to date. Following this funding and the potential to build its own brokerage capabilities, Relai hopes to give users the ability to transfer bitcoin directly to wallets of their own choice, a critical feature needed for someone to truly “own” the bitcoin that they buy through the platform.
“We want to help accelerate the mass adoption of crypto by easing access to its leading currency, bitcoin,” siad Peter Niederhauser, cofounder and partner at Redalpine, per the release. “We look forward to being part of the journey and to supporting this exceptional Swiss early-stage startup in achieving global success.”