U.K.-based cryptocurrency app Ziglu has raised over $8 million in a crowdfunding campaign, the largest equity raise on the Seedrs platform this year.
The support from some 1,250 investors brings Ziglu’s total fundraising to $14.8 million.
As for why the offering seemed to command attention on Seedrs: It’s good timing for the crypto app, which former Starling Bank co-founder Mark Hipperson launched in June of this year. Apps like PayPal, Square and Revolut are embracing bitcoin and its price is near all-time highs.
“I am blown away by just the reception and the support we’ve gotten from the community about our crowdfunding campaign,” said Ziglu Chief Growth Officer Yang Li.
Ziglu had aimed to raise a modest ?1 million ($1.34 million) but hit this target within three hours of the campaign opening.
“We weren’t being purposefully coy to set our target at ?1 million,” Li said. “I was thinking it would be nice if we could get halfway there by the end of the week. And then we blew the gates apart.”
The crowdfund turned out to be five times oversubscribed. The average investment amount was $6,445, Li said.
Ziglu allows users to buy, hold and sell bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether, litecoin and XRP. Earlier this year, the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) approved the payments platform as an Electronic Money Institution.
Read more: Starling Bank Co-Founder’s New UK-Licensed App Adds P2P Crypto Payments
The momentum created by the crowdfunding, plus the febrile atmosphere around a gathering crypto bull run, has also seen Ziglu’s user numbers spike.
“We were ranked as high as number five on the App Store and we are seeing a huge upsurge in user numbers,” said Li. “We’ve doubled the number of users in the past couple of weeks.”
