Bitcoin wallet Xverse raises $5 million from Franklin Templeton and others
Quick Take
- Bitcoin web3 wallet Xverse has raised $5 million in seed funding.
- Investors in the round include Jump Crypto, Franklin Templeton and Alliance.
Xverse, a bitcoin wallet that supports ordinals inscriptions and BRC-20 tokens, has raised $5 million in a seed funding round.
Jump Crypto led the round, with Franklin Templeton, Sfermion, Alliance, NGC Ventures and several others participating, Xverse said Thursday. The Hong Kong-based startup started raising for the seed round a few months ago and it closed "very recently," founder and CEO Ken Liao told The Block. He declined to comment on the structure of the round and valuation.
The seed round brings Xverse's total funding to date to $6 million. It raised $1 million in pre-seed funding in 2021 when it was founded, Liao said.
Xverse has been a bitcoin wallet from the beginning and recently started supporting ordinals inscriptions and BRC-20 tokens when they were introduced earlier this year and gained traction. Bitcoin ordinals is a method of generating non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Bitcoin blockchain through a process called inscribing. BRC-20 tokens, on the other hand, are basically Bitcoin's version of Ethereum's ERC-20 tokens.
Looking ahead, Xverse also plans to support the Bitcoin Lightning Network that helps conduct faster and cheaper transactions.
Xverse's funding comes amid a challenging funding environment this year. With the fresh capital, Xverse looks to expand its current team of 13 people by hiring mostly engineers, Liao said.
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