Blockchain bitcoin wallet start-up raises $40 million from Google, billionaire Richard Branson

    Blockchain, a bitcoin wallet start-up, has raised $40 million led by venture capital firm Lakestar, Google's investment arm GV, and billionaire Richard Branson, the company said on Thursday. The investment comes at a time of rising interest in cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin, which recently hit a record high and has seen a massive rally since the start of the year.  Blockchain.info has created a bitcoin  wallet which is essentially a piece of software to store the digital  currency and carry out transactions with other users.
The money will be used to expand the  team further and invest in more research and development, Blockchain CEO  Peter Smith, told CNBC on Thursday. In addition, the start-up is  looking to open new offices in different countries to expand.  

Smith said that the recent rally in bitcoin has  caused high demand for Blockchain's wallet product, and the funding will  help to meet that. "We are really focused on  scaling to meet the record demand we are getting in the market," Smith  told CNBC in a phone interview.  "We started raising this round  before the run up in the cryptomarket. It was good timing in the end  because while we were closing the round, we were massively up on every  level. Our traffic has been growing 15 percent week over week in last  two weeks." Blockchain has nearly 15 million  sign-ups with "billions of dollars worth of monthly consumer wallet  activity", Smith said, adding this includes deposits and transactions. Gross revenue is forecast to be  more than 1,000 percent year-over-year in June, Smith added, but could  not disclose the specific figure.  Blockchain was founded in 2011  and now has users in 140 countries. Its last funding round came in 2014  when it raised $30.5 million. Other investors in its latest round  include Nokota Management, Digital Currency Group and existing investors  Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mosaic Venture Partners, Prudence  Holdings, Virgin, and Richard Branson.  

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/22/bitcoin-wallet-startup-blockchain-raises-40-million-from-google-richard-branson.html