Thursday, June 20, 2013
BitAngels Gets Quick Start, Funds First Deal
BitAngels, the brand new angel investment group co-founded by Michael Terpin, has just made its first investment--and is gearing up for more, the firm said Thursday. BitAngels said it just invested $100,000 into BlueSeed, a firm incubating international companies in the Bitcoin area who specifically are not subject to regulation by the United States. BitAngels said four of its members invested $25,000 each in BlueSeed. BitAngels also said it now has more than 120 angels signed up to participate in its deals, with $17.7M in capital committed to invest in Bitcoin related companies.
BitAngels launched last month, organizing both a group of angels and capital to specifically target the emerging Bitcoin ecosystem. Bitcoin is the virtual, decentralized, electronic currency which has gained a lot of interest in recent months, which allows people to pay for services and products as they would any other currency (dollars, yen) -- and also can be exchanged into more traditional currencies.
BitAngels also opened up three, physical locations for incubating Bitcoin companies last month, in Austin, San Francisco and New York. The angel group's co-founder, Michael Terpin, is very active in the Los Angeles / Silicon Beach ecosystem, and has emerged as a de-facto spokesperson about the opportunities in Bitcoin.