Singapore-based Bitcoin startup, BitX has closed a $4 million Series A funding round led by the South Africa’s Naspers.
Naspers pitch in the deal was made through its payments subsidiary, PayU and BitX says existing investor, Barry Silberts Digital Currency Group also participated in the round.
Per the deal, PayU’s chief product officer James Caviness, will join the BitX board of directors.
BitX co-founder and CEO, Marcus Swanepoel is upbeat about the deal. “We see a bright future for cryptocurrency across a number of industry verticals, and with BitX’s strong management team and solid track record, look forward to leveraging Naspers’ global platform and local knowledge to help them capitalise on these opportunities, ” Swanepoel said.
BitX recently launched in Nigeria and is building up a wide reaching footprint in Africa with operations in South Africa and Kenya.
BitX is also operational in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines. Swanepoel says the cash injection from Naspers would help BitX expand.
Naspers has been throwing a lot of cash at ecommerce startups in Nigeria – DealFish, Mocality, OLX and Konga come to mind – and while it hasn’t seen much returns aside from the consolatory stake in Konga, its years of learning in Nigeria should come in handy for BitX as it no doubts will look to double down on growth in Africa’s largest economy.
