NanoPay, a Canadian payments outfit which now owns the MintChip cloud-based digital currency, has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round joined by Goldman Sachs.
Goldman's merchant banking division was joined in the round by APAGM Services, Jarnac Capital Management and Rohatton.
MintChip was developed by the Royal Canadian Mint, promising to bring the benefits of cash into the digital age, providing users with instant, private, secure, and fee-free access to their money.
However, the Mint was told to offload the assets before a commercial launch, and Toronto-based nanoPay stepped in.
MintChip's open API platform lets users securely store and transfer any form of digital value instantly and without the need for intermediaries. With the platform, transactions are final, irrevocable and settled in real-time. The system uses cryptography to protect assets and is designed to work both online and offline.
The MintChip app went live over the summer and can be used for P2P payments and in-store, although currently at only a few locations in Toronto. Users connect their bank accounts and credit cards, exchanging dollars in their app wallet for MintChips, lured in by the promise of cashback rewards.
The new funding will be used to build up business partnerships as nanoPay gears up for a wider rollout, and to create new services that extend the concept further into the B2B and B2C market.
Laurence Cooke, CEO, nanoPay, says: "After successfully deploying MintChip as a digital cash platform in Canada in June 2016, our focus is now on expanding the platform beyond digital cash to a broad range of B2B use cases that have global applications, for example, business-to-consumer disbursements and cross-border payments."