Ledger, the company behind such products like the secure HW.1 and Nano S secure hardware based cryptocurrency devices, announced today that it has successfully closed a Series A funding round led by MAIF Avenir and worth around US $7 million dollars. Other participants in the round included Xange, Wicklow Capital, GDTRE, Libertus Capital, Digital Currency Group, The Whittemore Collection, Kima Ventures, BHB Network and Nicolas Pinto. Ledger also successfully closed a US $1.5 million round in 2015, bringing total funding up to around US $8.5 million.
The company plans to use this latest funding to 'accelerate worldwide adoption of secure cryptocurrency and blockchain applications'. They already produce several user-programmable secure elements based on industry standard technologies that have proven over time to be both secure and tamper resistant. Their hardware, compared to solutions such as the Trezor and other secure digital elements for cryptocurrency, are relatively affordable with their popular HW.1 hardware Bitcoin wallet selling for just over US $15.00.
So far, the company has sold more than 50,000 units of their popular secure elements in over 130 countries since their introduction a few years ago.
The funding will be used to hire new staff and accelerate the development of Ledgers new 'Enterprise Vault', an offering for customers wishing to secure large quantities of varied cryptocurrencies in what is known as 'cold storage'. The product, based on a Hardware Security Module (HSM) is fully trustless but includes emergency recovery procedures in case users get locked out of the device or lose their private keys. The device includes such features as multi-currency and multi-signature support, rate limiting, and time locking and is scheduled to be introduced sometimes in Q3 of 2017. The company says it will also offer custodial management of one or more of the keys to customers who want it.
In my opinion, Ledger is an exciting company with good technology. This latest round of funding will allow them greater flexibility to do even more amazing and productive things than they already have. Congratulations Ledger!