Meaningful bitcoin venture investment activity continued in 2014, according to the latest quarterly State of Bitcoin report by CoinDesk, the world leader in news, prices and information on digital currencies.
In 2014, $335m were invested in bitcoin startups resulting in a +342% in comparison to 2013 ($96m). The largest deals were the following:
– Bitpay, which raised $30m in May 2014 (read here), and
– Blockchain, which raised $30.5m in October 2014 (read here).
In general, the investment activity shifted towards wallets ($88.1m), financial services ($75.4m), mining ($69.5m) and payment processors ($49.7m).
Four acquisitions took place during the year (Bitex.la acquired Conectabitcoin in October/Coinbase acquired Blockr in August/Gawminers acquired Zenminer in August/Cointerra acquired Bits of Proofs in July) with more deals expected min 2015.
The number of countries that received VC investment grew from 8 to 18 in 2014 with new countries including Denmark, Panama, Netherlands, Japan, Luxemburg, Sweden, Germany, India, Argentina, and Mexico.