Robocoin, known for opening the world’s first bitcoin ATM in Vancouver, Canada, in October 2013, told investors yesterday that it has launched a public bitcoin wallet and will offer a software development kit that adds Robocoin’s functionality to traditional ATMs.
The company has diversified its offerings since it started as a hardware company selling bitcoin ATMs, or BTMs, as the company called them. A cautionary tale in October 2014 about MetaLab founder Andrew Wilkinson and Sparklit founder Rajiv Khaneja’s experience buying — then trying desperately to return — a $25,000 Robocoin BTM, cast doubts on Robocoin’s ability to scale as a hardware company just a year after its first success, and months after a high-profile BTM opening on the Las Vegas Strip.
Things quickly got worse for the high-flying company. In the past few weeks, a number of outages in Robocoin’s network have led to rumors of serious difficulties within the company and an exit from the business of selling hardware altogether.
And now Robocoin tells Bank Innovation that it is raising its first round of outside capital after a seed round in 2013 and is shifting its focus to two software offerings, the wallet and an SDK for ATMs. This latter offering is compared to “an Android for ATMs” — meaning it is not tied to any particular device — and 2,000 kiosks are slated to integrate it in the next several months, according to Robocoin CEO Jordan Kelley. It will offer both bitcoin functionality, as well as functionality from the company’s remittance platform, Robocoin Cash.
The wallet, which began testing in September 2014, is now publicly available, and will soon see enhanced peer-to-peer payment functionality. Its initial rollout focused on international remittances for the financially underserved — this is expected to be part of the ATM SDK. In its beta testing period, the wallet saw about 23,000 bitcoin transactions, according to Robocoin. Robocoin also performed $11 million in cash transactions on its remittance platform.
The bitcoin software space is certainly a less expensive one to achieve scale, but it is also much more crowded. Robocoin now needs to quickly find the investment funds to build up its user base in the software space. Partnerships with ATM manufacturers also appear to be a critical next step.
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