Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Austin Angels Bet Big On Bitcoin

Two, Austin angel investors are part of the co-founding team of a new, angel investment group, BitAngels, which is hoping to tackle the growing business of Bitcoin electronic currency. BitAngels said today that it has raised $6.7M in funds from over 60 angels to invest in Bitcoin startups. BitCoin is an electronic currency which is an alternative to currency issued and governed by countries; the currency has caught fire in the last few months, with a huge increase in adoption and a corresponding increase in exchange rates. The two, Austin co-founders of BitAngels are David A. Johnston and Sam Onat Yilmaz, who, along with co-founder Michael Terpin, created the group to take invest in and help incubate Bitcoin companies. As part of the angel group's launch, BitAngels said it has opened up an Austin, on-site incubator location (in addition to locations in San Francisco and New York) to help create Bitcoin companies.