Coinbase Raises $25 Million From Andreessen Horowitz

On August 1st, Coinbase reached a milestone of 200,000 users. That was quickly followed in mid-October by the news that we had reached 300,000 users. Today, there are more than 600,000 consumer Bitcoin wallets on Coinbase, signaling that we are nearing a tipping point for broad adoption of Bitcoin — what we at Coinbase believe to be one of the most important shifts in the global economy in our lifetime.

In order to keep up with the growing consumer and merchant demand for Bitcoin, we must scale. And in order to do that, we are pleased to announce that today we have secured a series B funding round totaling $25M, led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from existing investors Union Square Ventures and Ribbit Capital. With this funding, Andreessen Horowitz’s Chris Dixon will join our board, along with Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson.

This investment represents the largest fundraise in Bitcoin to date (bringing our total raised to $31M). We see it as a key moment to show the opportunity of Bitcoin and the dramatic impact it will have on the global economy.

And we aren’t alone in that thinking. As Chris Dixon writes today on this blog,

The designers of the Web built placeholders for a system that moved money, but never successfully completed it. Bitcoin is the first plausible proposal for an economic protocol for the Internet.

This funding solidifies our position as the largest and fastest growing Bitcoin service in the U.S. We plan to use the funds to expand our team, continue to educate the market, and promote the mainstream adoption of Bitcoin. We’ll also expand our referral program, where you can give and get $5 in bitcoin for free when you refer a friend who buys or sells at least $100 of bitcoin.

Separately, we’re also very pleased to share that Gavin Andresen has joined Coinbase as an advisor. For those of you who don’t know him, Gavin is the head developer of Bitcoin as an open source software project. He said:

Coinbase has become a critical piece of the Bitcoin infrastructure in the U.S., giving people a trustworthy and easy way to buy, sell, trade and store bitcoins. The best part of my job as Chief Scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation is interacting with the brilliant people at Coinbase and other startups all over the world who are working hard to make Bitcoin accessible to everybody.

Coinbase is the only company that touches the three most important points of the Bitcoin ecosystem: consumers, merchants, and developers. We are averaging 10,000 new customer sign-ups a day, and are now working with over 16,000 merchants including OkCupid, Khan Academy, and Reddit, who use Coinbase to accept bitcoin. We are making it easier for consumers to buy, merchants to sell, and developers to build, and we can’t wait for our next chapter.

We think it’s going to be an exciting one!