Bitcoin Hardware Wallet Startup Ledger Raises $7 Million

Bitcoin hardware startup Ledger has raised $7m in a new Series A funding round.

The round was led by MAIF Avenir, an arm of French insurance giant MAIF. Others taking part in the Series A round include Xange, Wicklow Capital, GDTRE, Libertus Capital, Digital Currency Group, The Whittemore Collection, Kima Ventures, BHB Network, and investor Nicolas Pinto.

Ledger, which makes hardware for users to store and maintain control over their cryptocurrency private keys, plans to use that funding to expand its reach into the enterprise market. Notably, the startup intends to open a new factory in China as part of its hardware push, with an eye on a launch sometime in the next few months.

Co-founder Eric Larchevêque told CoinDesk:

"We hope that everything will be operational in May."

The new round comes more than two years after Ledger raised €1.3m in seed funding. In that time, the startup has moved to release wallets that support other cryptocurrencies and, in November, launched the Ledger Blue, a departure from its previous thumb drive-style aesthetic.

Ledger now plans to expand its reach into the enterprise space, with an eye to bring larger companies into its customer base – Larchevêque said he hopes to have the first beta customers in place by the end of June. The startup is also looking to grow its sales figures for the year, aiming to sell 100,000 units in 2017.

MAIF, which led the round, said it invested in the startup as a means to contribute to more confidence and security in cryptocurrency transactions.

Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Ledger.