Bitcoin startup Satoshi Citadel gets funding from Kakao’s investment arm

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Philippine Bitcoin startup Satoshi Citadel Industries (SCI) has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Korean web giant Kakao’s venture capital arm, KVG.

In a statement today, SCI says the investment is part of a “strategic partnership” with KVG, which has been actively looking at global investments.

KVG will support SCI through synergies with Kakao and its other assets.

KVG’s principal partner, Scott Kwon, says one of the “most inconvenient” sectors in Southeast Asia is the banking sector and “SCI, using the power of Bitcoin and the blockchain technology, provides an innovative solution to the problems.”

SCI launched in early 2014 with the mission to widen financial inclusion in the Philippines by catering to Filipinos without bank accounts.

From its very first product, Bitcoin payment processor Bitmarket, SCI has grown its portfolio to include Bitcoin card provider Prepaid Bitcoin, Bitcoin exchange BuyBitcoin, and remittance service Rebit.

The remittance market is an area the company is particular about given that the Philippines is the world’s third-biggest remittance market, next to India and China. Remittances sent home by overseas Filipinos hit US$28.5 billion in 2015.

“KVG will support SCI through synergies with Kakao and its other business assets and connections with its network of global partners,” SCI’s statement reads.

Kakao is a South Korea-based company that’s known for KakaoTalk, one of the most popular mobile chat apps in Asia.

It has built an ecosystem of apps around KakaoTalk, giving users the ability to access a variety of services with one account. Those apps include an Instagram-like photo sharing social network KakaoStory, a platform for game developers to publish their games called Kakao Game, and a content and media publishing platform that pays content creators called Kakao Page.

We’ve reached out to SCI’s chief executive John Bailon for more details about the possible synergies with Kakao, but he said there’s nothing specific yet.

SCI will use its seed investment to improve its technology, grow its team, and expand its number of partners across the globe.