Users can buy and sell virtual currencies and other assets like the FX Structured Products, do in-wallet trading and use a payment suite with virtual currency payment products for various business owners.

The startup also has an extensive network of partners, including Forbes and SEB.

According to Bitcoin UP für Anfänger, now Coinify expands its virtual currency lineup with three new currencies: Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Stellar lumens (XLM) and Bitcoin SV (BSV), which users can buy with bank transers or credit cards. The unique feature of the platform is that users do not need to use bitcoins as a medium for exchange to access other virtual currencies.

“We are continually developing our services to support access to virtual currencies while taking an agnostic stance on the ecosystem,” said co-founder and CEO of Coinify, Mark Højgaard.

The startup also rebranded its trade platform for private individuals, and it is now called myCoinify.

The rebranding comes as part of Coinify’s extension of their payment offerings, thus needing a clear distinction between their Payments Product Suite for businesses, and myCoinify, which is a B2C service for private individuals.

“By providing a clear separation between the platform for individual users and our payment product collection, we can serve our users in the best way possible and resolve their needs more effectively,” said Pia Skafte Johansen, Head of Payment Solutions at Coinify.

myCoinify will continue to focus on the end users by providing them with a simple and compliant platform to buy multiple virtual currencies.

The startup’s plan is to support a total of 15 different virtual currencies on the platform by the end of 2019.

The post Award-winning startup Coinify expands and introduces myCoinify appeared first on Øresund Startups.

BetterCoins has not yet released its first financial report. The company has been around for a little longer than a year and it is known to have sold for over €2 million, with a positive result. All run from a computer in his teenage room in Odense.

“At some point I probably start a new business again. But now it’s all about completing my education, and then I probably go abroad to work.” Mads told finans.dk after the acquisition.

The recent waves of lower market volume combined with heavier regulatory requirements have been challenging the industry.

“We are seeing companies in the industry looking to find acquisition partners which are compliant with the coming regulation and in general, ones who have a financial services-regulated approach to their business. This is where Coinify has a sweet spot.”, remarked Mark Højgaard, co-founder and CEO of Coinify.

The post A 19-year-old sells cryptocurrency to Coinify appeared first on Øresund Startups.

“Coinify is a blockchain payment company with the mission to bridge the gap between emerging blockchain and traditional finance industries. The fact that our current investors are joined by a classic, yet very visionary bank dating back to 1856, sends a strong message to both the banking and the blockchain communities. We plan to use this investment to sustain our leading position in Europe and expand our blockchain payment and trade products into Asia.” says Mark Højgaard, Co-Founder of Coinify

Coinify works with a payment solution for the digital payment form bitcoin and other digital currencies, as a blockchain payment service provider (bPSP). The startup has in 2014 gotten an investment from SEED Capital, and in 2015 the startup acquired the Dutch company Coinzone. Now SEB Venture Capital invested as well, $ 4 million (€ 3.5 million), in a series A investment. It can also be seen that SEB Venture Capital has a voting right of between 5 to 9.99 per cent, as of the 13 July this year, according to finanswatch that have kept an eye on the corporate database biq.dk where the company’s registration information is to be found.

Also public is that Stefan Olofsson from SEB enters the board of directors of the company, according to the Central Business Register (CVR). He is the investment manager in the field of life science and technology in SEB and has been with the Group since 1987. He works at the office in Malmö with companies from both Sweden and Denmark. Before joining SEB Venture Capital in 2001, he worked as an account manager with business customers of SEB. Also, Investment Manager at SEB Filip Petersson has been appointed deputy director in Coinify. Learn more about that news on https://broker.cex.io.

Lars Andersen from Seed Capital has also got a role on the board, replacing Richard Breiter from Seed Capital, which has exited. Beyond them on the board Hans Henrik Hoffmeyer as President, he is senior vice president of mobile services at Nets, additionally Robert Stenholt Mygind, founder of the company Reepay and a Morten Kjærsgaard.

The post Coinify raises € 3.5 million from SEB Venture Capital appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Coinify has previously been very active with acquisitions as a method for achieving growth, stated in company’s press-release. In September 2014, when the company secured a multi-million capital injection by SEED Capital and Accelerace Invest, Coinify unified consumer and merchant services by purchasing technologies and the customer base from the trade platform Bitcoin Nordic and merchant services pioneer Bitcoin Internet Payment System.

According to Manuel Heilmann, CEO of Coinzone, the deal with Coinify was interesting for Coinezone because of Coinify’s strong financial management team and supportive investors behind it, all of which give good perspective for future growth. Meanwhile Coinify is preparing for a series A investment to accelerate the expansion even further.

“Coinify is taking the lead in the current battlefield with a strong belief that Coinify will be among the top players in the world dealing with cryptocurrency infrastructure for online merchants through a PSP tailored solution. The Coinify team has done an amazing job, pushing past milestones and achievements beyond our expectations,” shared Richard Breiter, SEED Capital.

The post Coinify strengthens its European presence with a new acquisition appeared first on Øresund Startups.

The Town Halls – a grassroots movement

As with all other things #chpftw does, it is a ‘by startups, for startups’ initiative, made possible by the foundation that so far over 90 startups have supported. It is impressive how much that is achieved drawing on connections, contacts and volunteers. Not just the Town Halls, but also the VC arrangements, events like AngelNext, and the sharing groups.

As usually, it was an event packed with startup people, both senior entrepreneurs, engineers, angels and VCs, as well as those just exploring ideas. A mixture that enables a lot of knowledge to be shared.

New for this Town Hall was that there was a startup corner, with 6 booths. Exhibiting there were Audiocase, Mono+, Airhelp, Davuud, Usertribe and the Seedcamp Accelerator.

Also new was a job board, where anybody could post a job offer or request, using the analog methods of pen and papper.

Zendesk engineering insights

As with the other Town Halls the program included 2 keynotes, a series of short presentation by startups that have achieved something special recently, and a series of short presentation by community events or places.

The first keynote was by Morten Primdahl, Co-Founder and CTO of Zendesk. He shared a lot of insights into building a tech organisation and developer teams that scale globally, with offices in San Francisco as well as the Copenhagen, Melbourne and Singapore.

“We have built autonomous teams, working after their own goals and objectives”

He also talked about differences with hiring developers in SF compared to Copenhagen:

“You learn that recruiters in the tech scene are more like real estate agents”

– was his remark on the SF scene, continuing:

“In Denmark people actually apply if you but out a job, you don’t have to chase them down.”

He also shared insights into how Zendesk was started and grew. He talked about the milestone, and technical problems, they got from getting Twitter as an early costumer in 2009. And about funding, and how it was impossible to raise money in Denmark back then.

“Funding in Denmark was very dry. For a long time our live was about to get by as good as possible with what we had.”

Startup presentations: Bitcoins, Motorcycles, Football and more

After Mortens talk, 5 startups got 5 minutes each on stage. These were:

Tonsser – A social network for football, especially youth clubs, founded in 2014. Peter took the stage and talked about how they have grown to over 10 000 users, with a 10-20 % average weekly user growth, and a great 50 % active weekly users. He also mentioned that they already cover 90 % of all Danish football teams for 14 – 19 year olds, and that the next step is internationalisation.

Coinify – talked about bitcoin and how Coinify handles bitcoin transaction and exchanges. They announced they had just closed a new deal with a credit card service provider, to be able to provide bitcoin services. And also that the team has been expanded to 15 people at the startup now.

Nordic Power Converters – A startup that just won the Danish Tech Challenge, with it’s technology that enables a large improvement in power converters. They are focusing on the LED market, and can make LED lamps lighter, cheaper, and increase their lifetime. A great innovation, with a huge market, that can save both a lot of costs as well as energy. They announced they are currently 15 at the startup, and are looking for raising a $ 2 millions round.

Be My Eyes – The app that helps blind people see and has gotten a huge deal of media attention. Christian Erfurt talked about how they have grown to 200 000 users in 50+ countries. That they got so much media attention that they have held over 100 different interviews since launch, and the plans for the future.

Future Electric – Probably the talk that left the biggest impression. Jesper Vind talked about his startup, which aims to be the Tesla of motorcycles! He talked about his racing background, and the huge advantages electric motorcycles had over regular ones when it comes to torque, speed and handling. He said they have created a motorcycle without liquids or vibrations, with a top speed over 300 km/h and insane acceleration. He also announced that they had just secured and angel round, with one of the Podio co-founders investing in the company!

The best impression was of course the live demo of the motorcycle that they had brought to the stage. By far the most popular object for pictures during the evening.

Community

After the startup presentations, and some beer (with Zendesk’s employees handling the bar), 5 community initiatives from the region where presented as well. This included Creative Morning, Mindpark (transparency – I, Karsten Deppert, am the owner of Mindpark), Thinkubator and Design Thinking Copenhagen. All gave short presentations on how they are relevant or of use for the startup scene.
The Nordic Next event was also presented, by Michael Hoy. As the Nordic Next is an invite only event for investors, he gave it an appropriate introduction:

“I am the asshole standing on stage talking about an event most of you will not be invited to…”

Michaels remarks that the event will be held in ‘Malmö, the Brooklyn of Copenhagen’ also drew a lot of cheers.

Jens Karstoft

Final keynote was Jens Karstoft, who talked about his journey with Zmags, and about starting a venture and making an exit.

He shared 3 main lessons learned: How to become a market leading solution, how to get into the U.S. and how to exit the business. About how the grew and expanded to the U.S., he mentioned that it was not as hard as they believed:

“The U.S. is not rocket science.”

– Jens said, before continuing:

“We did it before we raised any money.”

Other insights to building a great SaaS startup was to

“A relentless focus on execution”

He ended his talks with insights from being acquired, and how there is a big difference if you make an exit to a private equity company or to one of the tech giants, such as Facebook or Google.

A great event

Overall, it was another great Town Hall meet-up. We look forward to the next one already, planned to be in June!

The post The fifth #cphftw town hall – Zendesk, football & electric motorcycles appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Big Spenders

The funds have already been put into good use with several acquisitions made by Coinify which will surely aid them in reaching new heights within the European market. Amongst these, the firm has snapped up Bitcoin Nordic, hailed as one of Euorpe’s first digital currency brokers. Also on Coinify’s list of recent purchases are the intellectual property rights to payment gateway technology and merchant relationships from Bitcoin Internet Payment System, the Copenhagen based firm specializing in making cryptocurrencies seamless.

The Bitcoin Bandwagon

The Danish startup field seems eager to snap up the Bitcoin craze; just this summer Hungry.dk bit into the craze by allowing customers to order and pay for food online using the currency.
SEED Capital’s recent investment in Coinify makes them the first to invest in the digital currency market.

SEED Capital investment manager Richard Breiter shares Denmark’s enthusiasm and optimism regarding the potential of Bitcoin:

“The internet protocol revolutionised the way we communicate, and the Bitcoin protocol can revolutionise the way we transfer unique digital assets from one internet user to another. Potentially all transactions could in the future be done in virtual currencies. That is a development we have to be a part of, and at SEED Capital we are comfortable being at the forefront of technological development.”

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Passengers of the Bitcoin Bandwagon are as excited about the course this currency will take. If you’re on of these, make sure you check out ArcticStartup’s cover of the story.

The post Coinify Cashes in on Multi-Million Capital Injection appeared first on Øresund Startups.