Galoy raises $4m in funding to advance bitcoin-native banking infrastructure

A new $4m fundraise for Galoy enables further development of the GaloyMoney open source core bitcoin banking platform, a versatile API, and an enterprise-ready Lightning gateway providing organizations access to Lightning payments. Hivemind Ventures led the investment round with participation from Valor Equity Partners, Timechain, El Zonte Capital, Kingsway Capital, Trammell Venture Partners, AlphaPoint and other leading Bitcoin investors. Software and services from Galoy enable any organization to integrate Lightning payments and launch bitcoin-native banking services for their customers, citizens and communities. The platform significantly reduces the development burden of building on bitcoin via a suite of tools such as apps for consumers, merchants and administrators, an accounting ledger, an open API and multi-signature setup for secure custody of funds. Companies, cities, community projects and countries building on the Galoy platform can customize, deploy and contribute to a growing list of useful features:

• Lightning wallet with educational onboarding, a merchant map and Lightning address
• Web wallet for use in-browser across devices
• Merchant point of sale applications for accepting bitcoin
• Send from and receive to USD accounts over Lightning using Stablesats
• Marketplace for finding merchants and connecting buyers with sellers
• Integrations with popular apps, bitcoin ATMs and hardware signing devices

Max Webster, founder of Hivemind Ventures, sees open source bitcoin banking as an important driver of global bitcoin and Lightning adoption: “Galoy dramatically lowers the barrier for any community or organization to become their own bank and plug into the world’s first open monetary and payments standard. Because it’s open source, Galoy’s platform benefits from a flywheel effect that can make it the Schelling point for banking software: each new customer’s implementation improves the security, reliability, and capability for all present and future customers. Hivemind is proud to partner with Galoy as it promotes a flowering of community banks around the world and accelerates the adoption of bitcoin and the Lightning Network by 8 billion people.” Nicolas Burtey adds: “It’s no secret that bitcoin and Lightning are disrupting traditional finance. We see the Galoy team, contributors and clients as a community working together to build a bridge towards a more open and inclusive global financial system.”