Lightning Network startup Neutronpay raises $2.25 million in seed funding to disrupt traditional payment rails starting in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. , Canadian Business Journal

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Neutronpay is a startup based in Vancouver, Canada and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam that enables consumers and businesses to make payments on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. We have raised US$2.25 million in seed to allow you to send and receive. Funding June 1, 2022.

The Lightning Network is a “Layer 2” payment protocol that sits on top of Bitcoin, facilitating instant payment settlements measured in milliseconds, capable of millions of transactions per second, and extremely Allows for low fees. type, period. Lightning has the potential to replace all debit, credit and wire transactions worldwide. Its interoperability allows anyone with a Lightning-enabled app to spend and transfer funds in their local currency with merchants and individuals around the world. Online, brick-and-mortar, cross-border, micro, real-time, lightning makes it possible!

The round was led by Hivemind Ventures, with venture firms Republic, Cavalry, Ride Wave, Studio, Iterative, Fulgur Ventures, Lightning Labs, and private investors Bill Crowley (Former Chief Product Officer – Hyperwallet) and Lisa Shields (Founder and received additional funding from CEO – Hyperwallet *acquired by PayPal).

The funding will help us add headcount to various departments, with a focus on further developing our enterprise APIs, and will soon roll out Mobile Consumer Apps, Sales & Marketing, and Compliance.

Founded in 2018 by CEO Albert Buu, Neutronpay is the first Lightning company to initially focus on Vietnam’s 100 million population, with additional countries to follow across Southeast Asia.

With a population of 680 million, Southeast Asia’s economy and financial system have grown tremendously over the past two decades, but 70% of the population is unbanked and 50% are unbanked. , about 340 million people are still completely marginalized. digital economy.

“Born and raised in Canada, I was lucky enough to be part of the world’s first financial infrastructure. But I knew that by going to Vietnam, where my parents and family are from, I could make a difference by introducing them to the Lightning Network and all that it can offer the people of the country. It was my commitment to make this vision a reality when I moved to Vietnam three years ago. Laying out Lightning’s infrastructure across Southeast Asia will make it much easier for locals to do better with each other, allowing people from other regions to trade in the region, whether they’re on vacation or doing business. becomes very easy to do.” Albert Buu was quoted as saying:

Led by a core team with backgrounds in payments, banking, compliance and previous ventures in the cryptocurrency industry, Neutronpay is well suited for the task at hand.

Neutronpay COO Malcolm Weed said:Hyperwallet, as we’ve seen the landscape of local and cross-border payments since our days in Albert, the Lightning Network is ready to help you buy groceries, send family money abroad, or pay for movie tickets online. Earlier this year. Since then, we’ve had great conversations with various global companies, not just in Southeast Asia, who want to leverage our API. They believe that the Lightning Network will support not only Bitcoin payments, but also USD stablecoins by Q4 2022, allowing them to send fiat payments without being exposed to Bitcoin volatility. I like the fact that I get the benefits of rails. Over the next few quarters, we will share with everyone our progress as we onboard multiple business use cases with Lightning.”

The Lightning Network has seen tremendous growth since El Salvador launched a domestic Bitcoin wallet with Lightning integration in the fall of 2021. This allowed users to instantly use it at merchants nationwide. Twitter announced the Lightning chip, Cashapp said he will launch Lightning in January 2022, and Robinhood announced his intention to launch Lightning in April as well. Given that both co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey (Twitter, Block/Cashapp) and his Vald Tenev (Robinhood) were early investors in Lightning Labs and believe in the future of the Lightning Network, this makes sense.

For businesses that make payments as part of their operations, get in touch to understand how the Lightning Network can add value to your existing workflows. [email protected]

Also, if you are a consumer, please add your contact information to our waiting list so that you can be the first to access the mobile app when it becomes available in your country. https://neutronpay.com/app/

Below is a list of Neutronpay services or checkouts. www.neutronpay.com

• Neutronpay API: Businesses can easily connect via API so they can leverage Lightning infrastructure to accept payments and send payments.
• Neutronpay mobile app: Consumers can receive, send and pay via the Lightning network, whether it’s face-to-face sales of goods and services, e-commerce, cross-border money transfers, or paying a friend for lunch. It is now possible.

Media Contact: [email protected]

CBJ Newsmaker