Amsterdam-based CryptoRefills, a startup on a mission to enable people to spend bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for their everyday needs, announced that it has raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round of funding.
The Dutch startup says it will use the funds to scale its current business and expand its service offerings with a new gift card and incentive services based on blockchain and web 3 technologies.
Investors in this round
The round was led by Eric Barbier. He is a fintech entrepreneur and angel investor, founder of TransferTo (now Dtone and Thunes) and Mobile 365 (acquired by SAP). Barbier is currently the founder and CEO of Singapore-based crypto payments provider Triple A.
Barbier will also be the Chairman of the company.
Massimiliano Silenzi, co-founder of CryptoRefills, says, “Eric has an impressive track record as an entrepreneur, he has founded some very successful companies and sits on the Board of different global Fintechs. His experience ranges across many key areas of our business, from the mobile top-up and payments industry to traditional fintech, cards and payments services, and more recently in crypto. He can provide great value and guidance as we progress into the next phase of our expansion, which will see us developing Web 3 services and technologies for our partners and customers.”
Besides Eric, the round also saw participation from investors and advisors Marnix Geraerts and Daniël Soons from LXA Advocaten, and John Graham of Graham, Smith & Partners – International Tax Counsel.
Bringing bitcoin and crypto into everyday life
CryptoRefills was founded by Silenzi and Simonluca Landi in 2018 to put their combined 30 years of experience in digital payments technologies to develop the largest consumer-centric crypto shopping platform. The founding team also includes Mats Veenman.
CryptoRefills is on a mission to enable people all over the world to spend bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for their everyday needs.
The company says, “We started our adventure by enabling users to top up their mobile credit using Bitcoin. We then added gift cards starting from games and apps and progressively expanded our catalogue to include the world’s largest online and offline retail brands. In the meantime, we also started accepting new coins, added new features to our platform, launched our mobile native apps, and closed some great commercial and marketing partnerships such as with Binance and Avalanche.”
Using CryptoRefills, people from more than 150 countries and territories top up their mobile credit and purchase gift cards from the biggest digital and retail businesses in the world.
One of the first companies in the world to introduce Ethereum layer-2 payments (via Polygon Matic and Arbitrum) and fast finality blockchains (via Avalanche and Fantom) for e-commerce payments, CryptoRefills claims it is at the forefront of applied decentralised payments innovation and claims to be creating new technologies for the gift card sector. Through its Labs programme, the company is also actively researching and educating on consumer use of cryptocurrencies in retail, and it publishes an annual report on the subject.
CryptoRefills is headquartered in Amsterdam and has offices in Milano and Istanbul. The company is also a member of the Holland Fintech Association and Blockchain Netherlands Foundation.
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