Korbit operates a bitcoin exchange and wallet and provides merchant processing through its Korbit Pay service. It launched the first bitcoin–Korean won exchange and positions itself as localized against competitors like Coinbase and BitPay. The company monetizes by charging a 1% fee to merchants who convert incoming bitcoin payments to fiat. Korbit reported 25,000 users across its exchange and wallet services and 400 merchant accounts for Korbit Pay. The startup said it will use the Series A proceeds to improve product and service quality and to make additional hires. South Korea’s supportive e‑commerce environment and technical talent were cited by investors as tailwinds for the business. Korbit is a South Korean bitcoin exchange that facilitates BTC trading on a platform charging a 0.6% fee on buys and sells. The company reports about $300,000 in trading volume per day and has roughly 20,000 registered users, and is already profitable. It recently launched real-time processing for deposits and withdrawals to speed up transactions. Although currently an exchange, Korbit plans to launch wallet services in the future. The South Korean Ministry of Science helped broker contact between the startup and angel investors after a pitch event in Silicon Valley. CEO Tony Lyu says the government does not recognize Bitcoin as a currency but is taking a "wait-and-see" approach.

Total raised

$3M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Aug 2014