Bitcoin Messenger GetGems Raises $400K VC Funding from Magma Venture Partners
| Updatedby Polina Chernykh · 2 min read
GetGems messaging app received an investment of $400,000 from Magma Venture Partners.
GetGems, a bitcoin social messaging application, secured $400,000 investment following a partnership with Magma Venture Partners. The Israeli company has already raised $600,000 through the sale of Gemz, which began a month ago. Gemz is a cryptocurrency issued on the Bitcoin blockchain via the Counterparty platform.
Magma Venture Partners, the major Israel-based VC company, entered into agreement with GetGems to support the startup’s future development. The VC firm is known for investing in Waze app, which was then acquired by Google for $1.1 billion.
Ran Achituv, General Partner at Magma Venture Partners, says: “We hope our investment as a well-known venture capital firm would also increase the Bitcoin community as well as general public’s trust in GetGems as a platform and therefore its cryptocurrency will have an increasing value.”
“[We] looked at Bitcoin a year ago, met 5 to 10 companies, and decided it wasn’t the time. We started re-looking at this about 3 weeks ago and met 10 plus new companies in the [cryptocurrency] domain. … We look in a company for 4 D’s: disruption, differentiation, distribution and D’he [the] team, and we got a strong YES on all 4 with the Gems team,” he told CoinTelegraph.
GetGems is a service that allows its users sharing messages with friends in a profitable and fun way, rewarding the most active users by sending them Gemz. The users are paid for referring other users and for viewing the sponsor messages.
The platform includes wallets for storing Gemz and bitcoins, which can be transferred to other users of the service and used for advertisements. Besides, secure encrypted messaging allows users remaining anonymous if they desire.
“Intrinsically, fundamentally, the way Gems views your attention is the right way to go. You should be compensated for that. So if someone wants to show you an ad, he can transfer some value to your view: GEMZ. … The blockchain is what enables the transfer of value. You just couldn’t do that before,” Achituv explained GetGems.
The service’s users are able to invite friends to join the platform and participate in the group chats, which can include up to 200 people.
The company is also in plans to integrate more digital currencies in addition to bitcoin.
The app is currently available at the Google Play Store in its beta version only for Android devices, while the version for iOS platform is scheduled to be launched in the next few months.
