San Diego Newcomer Airbitz Raises $450K for Bitcoin Technology

Bitcoins 25025591 by 3dart

Airbitz, a downtown San Diego startup with a vision of bringing digital currency to the masses, said it recently raised $450,000 of what is expected to be an initial seed round of more than $1.2 million.

In presentations over the past year, Airbitz co-founder and CEO Paul Puey has said the company’s vision is “to bring Bitcoin to the next billion users” through a decentralized, Web-based platform that emphasizes customer ease of use and ease of security. The company’s lead product is a mobile app that operates as a digital wallet for bitcoins.

Puey, a former Nvidia senior engineer and small business operator, says Airbitz now has nine employees, including co-founder and CTO Tim Horton, co-founder and chief architect William Swanson, co-founder and design vice president Damian Cutillo, and COO Rich “Henri” Chan.

According to Puey, Airbitz has combined existing technologies in a new way, using encryption, backup, two-factor authentication, two-device synchronization, and password recovery to make the Airbitz network secure at the device level.

airBitz logoAirbitz says its software enables users to control their bitcoins and easily transfer bitcoins between accounts. According to the company, the security measures prevent third parties from accessing user funds or data in the network or on a device. Airbitz itself has no access to customer funds or data.

The company’s bitcoin wallet, which automatically encrypts, secures and backs up user data, became available last fall on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Block26, a recently formed Bitcoin-focused venture fund in Los Angeles, said its $450,000 investment in Airbitz marks its first investment. In a statement, Block26 co-founder and managing principal Ni’coel Stark says Airbitz is far more than a digital wallet. The security technology can be adapted for use in other sectors, she said.

As an example, Puey said the company’s security technology could be adapted for use with QuickBooks, Intuit’s accounting software used mostly in small to medium businesses, and would make it easier to synch data across multiple desktop computers and mobile devices.

Founded in early 2014, Airbitz also was selected to spend 10 weeks in the Plug and Play accelerator program held earlier this year in Sunnyvale, CA. In addition to workshops, mentorships, and networking, Airbitz qualified to get as much as $25,000 from Plug and Play Ventures in the form of a loan that can be converted into Airbitz stock.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.