Headquartered in the UK, with offices in South Africa, Centbee, a blockchain payments company, has closed a $1 million pre-Series A round.
Coming from entrepreneur Calvin Ayre, founder of Ayre Ventures, who first invested in Centbee in 2019, the funding will enhance the company’s goal to make cross-border payments seamless.
Commenting on the pre-Series A round, Ayre said, “My faith in Centbee has been rewarded through Angus and Lorien’s ongoing commitment to making Bitcoin – the original protocol in the form of BSV – easily usable and accessible to everyone. Unlike other blockchains, BSV is focused on utility, not speculation, and Centbee is working hard to further Bitcoin’s adoption as a true peer-to-peer electronic cash system.”
Centbee Co-CEO, Lorien Gamaroff, added that the company has the right vision, products and team to drive exponential growth for its investors. “Consumers around the world are looking for better, easier ways to pay, and our blockchain-based payment wallet does just that. Our latest feature, ChatPay, makes it easy to send money via an in-wallet chat application.”
Centbee was founded by co-CEOs, Lorien Gamaroff and Angus Brown. Gamaroff is a leading expert in blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies. He has consulted and advised regulators and corporates internationally and is highly regarded globally as an educator and presenter. Brown has 20 years of experience in payments and banking including the role of CEO of eBucks.com, a world-first bank-backed digital currency created in 2000. Brown was appointed Chairman of the BSV blockchain’s Technical Standards Committee earlier this year.
“Centbee has a suite of digital cash products and services that make payments easy, even cross-border,” says Angus Brown, Co-CEO. “Our cross-border remittance service, Minit Money, enables people to move money simply and cheaply across borders to support family and friends and has already processed over 35 000 remittances into Africa. The investment by Ayre Group will be used for scaling and growth as well as strengthening technical and operating capacity.”
