CoolBitX, a Taiwan-based blockchain security company, has raised $16.75 million in a series B funding round to market its FATF Travel Rule compliance solutions Sygna Bridge.
According to the reports, the funding round was led by Japanese financial group SBI Holdings, with participation from the National Development Fund of Taiwan, Korean crypto exchange BitSonic and Japanese financial firm Monex.
CoolBitX wants to expand its first-to-market FATF Travel Rule compliance solution Sygna Bridge for virtual asset services providers (VASPs) beyond Asia-Pacific region as part of its strategy for year 2020. According to the company, this messaging network helps virtual asset service providers (VASPs) share privacy-secure and accurate transmittal data with counterparties.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) released its standards combating money laundering and terrorism that also includes the much-debated travel rule in June of 2019 and gave its member time of 12 months to implements these standards with a review set in 2020. Now with the June approaching, more and more VASPs are implementing FATF compliance solution.
The company launched this Travel Rule compliance solution in October 2019, to help VSAPs with the first market-ready solution so that they may be fully FATF compliant. Reports are saying that more 10 Asian exchanges have signed Memorandums of Understandings (MOUs) with CoolBitX creating a Sygna Alliance to begin or consider implementing Sygna Bridge.
Michael Ou, CEO of CoolBitX, commented:
“Through Sygna and CoolWallet S, we’re proud to develop the tools and infrastructure necessary to bridge the gap between the mainstream market and crypto industry. This latest funding round is a testament to our vision to help the industry mature and foster the mass adoption of virtual assets. Sygna’s progress has been in line with the strides made in crypto KYC/AML in various Asian jurisdictions, especially Japan. As such, CoolBitX will be establishing a Sygna entity in Japan this year as we are committed to having open dialogues with local stakeholders.”
CoolBitX was founded in 2014. The company released CoolWallet S in 2018 that is the world’s first hardware wallet that allows for Bluetooth-enabled pairing with users’ mobile phones. The company is backed the Japanese holding Strategic Business Innovator (SBI) who also purchased 40% stake in CoolBitX in March 2018.
Yoshitaka Kitao, President and CEO of SBI Holdings, Inc, commented:
“As one of the early investors in CoolBitX, SBI Holdings is happy to see the breakthroughs made by the CoolBitX team to drive cryptocurrency adoption forward. As such, we are delighted to participate in our second tranche of investment in CoolBitX. The borderless nature of digital assets requires a solution that isn’t bound by geographical boundaries and we are proud to partner with CoolBitX on their journey to bring a secure and easy-to-implement system to the world.”
