Billon, the British/Polish fintech which uses distributed ledger technology to tokenise national currencies, has raised £2 million in funding with support from the UK Government's Future Fund Scheme.
Billon secured investment commitments from angel investors and VCs of £1 million matched by the UK government through the British Business Bank for an additional £1 million.
The Future Fund was established by the UK government in April 2020 to support startups and innovative companies affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and economic downturn. The programme requires private sector lead investment, with the government contributing on a match funded basis. So far, the fund has invested in 320 companies for a total amount of over £320 million.
Anand Phanse, CFO Billon Group, says: “This new funding in 2020 will support the next phase of Billon’s development, and represents an endorsement that investors seek pure distributed ledger technology companies that are better suited for solving national currency and personal data challenges than certain early blockchain architectures. The pandemic will open new opportunities for innovative companies like Billon.”
The five-year-old British-Polish fintech has previously raised over $13 million of equity from investors, including the recent close of its Series A. As well, the company received an additional $6 million in R&D grants from programmes such as EU Horizon 2020, the Polish National Centre for Research and Development, and Innovate UK.
The firm is currently working with Austria's Raiffeisen Bank to pilot the use of digital currency for money transfers and custody with corporate and institutional clients after a successful proof-of-concept. Other clients include FIS and Polish credit reporting agency BIK.