Israeli Bitcoin Startup Simplex Raises $7 Mln In Series A

Simplex, an Israel-based bitcoin startup, has closed a $7 million Series A funding round joined by angel investors, bitcoin mining firms Bitmain and Cumberland Mining, and crowdfunding platform FundersClub, as reported by CoinDesk. This adds to the previously raised $1.4 million, bringing the firm’s total fundraising to $8.4 million.

The company, founded in 2014, enables cryptocurrency exchanges to accept credit cards at no charge back risk.  It achieves this by utilizing its extensive experience in fraud analysis and risk management fraud detection and domain expertise along with unique understanding of the cryptocurrency protocol in its context. 

Founded by serial entrepreneur Nimrod Lehavi and two PayPal veterans, Erez Shapira and Netanel Kabala, the startup claims to have already processed more than $3.5 million in transactions since going live in beta a year ago, Finextra reported.

"With Simplex, transactions are convenient, carry less restrictions, and occur almost instantaneously. Bitcoin buyers can use Simplex’s checkout page on Bitcoin exchanges, broker websites, and wallet applications, then proceed with their purchases, as they would on any e-commerce site”, CEO Lehavi said.

In an interview with CoinDesk, Lehavi said that the company aims to facilitate faster purchases of bitcoin via credit card, while reducing the consequences of fraud for businesses that offer the service. He added that in the event of fraud or a chargeback, Simplex absorbs the cost.

"Even if there's a chargeback, we're still paying them the money," he said.

Simplex website lists its customers that include Genesis Mining, Spectrocoin and Bits of Gold, among others.