Coin, a YC-backed company looking to thin down your wallet, is currently in the process of raising around $15 million in Series A funding, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
Led by Kanishk Parashar and K9 investor/board member Manu Kumar, Coin offers a replacement for every credit card in your wallet. It swipes just like a credit card normally would, but with a button to switch between your AMEX, your personal Visa and your corporate credit card. But it does more than just slim your wallet.
The company put the Bluetooth-powered wallet up for pre-order in November using their own crowdfunding campaign, and blew past the $50,000 goal in less than 40 minutes. Coin promised to get first shipments out by this summer.
According to sources, the company needed to raise a Series A to cover production costs in the midst of unexpected and overwhelming demand. (I pre-ordered, too.)
Though the raise is imminent, it is unclear which investors are playing in the round. Rumors suggest that Redpoint may be involved. We have also heard that Coin has hired several new engineers, which could signal that they are expecting a cash infusion soon, or even that the round has already closed.
Prior to this, Coin had raised $1.5 million in seed funding from K9 Ventures, SoftTech VC, and Y Combinator, according to Crunchbase.
Coin creator and engineer Kanishk Parashar originally started a payments company called SmartMarket before moving on to develop a credit card replacement.
Pairing with your smartphone, Coin ensures that you never leave your credit card behind through alerts, and has sophisticated security features that recognize fraudulent activity the moment that someone tries to steal CC information. (Oftentimes, credit card owners aren’t aware that their credit card info has been stolen until the thief tries to use the card, not when they first steal the information.)
The price for such a device? $50, plus $5 shipping, as long as you participate in the pre-order phase. Once the device goes on sale officially, it will cost $100.
The company faced as much criticism as it did hype when pre-orders first opened, but has done a good job of answering questions.
This is hardly the first time a company has tried the all-in-one card strategy, nor is it the first time consumers have embraced it. In 2012, the press were similarly excited about a device called the Protean Echo, which is still listed as shipping soon. Flint is another startup dabbling in the consumer payments space.
Clearly, an evolution in the way we pay for things is on the horizon. The question, rather, is whether or not Coin will join Square and Stripe and Bitcoin and others as a major player in the revolution.
If you’re interested in learning more about Coin, check out TC writer Ryan Lawler’s interview with CEO and co-founder Kineshk Parashar below:
The United States Department of Justice on Monday announced two new options for tech companies to report on government requests for information about their customers. In response, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, LinkedIn and Yahoo withdrew their lawsuits against the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court over the issue. "We filed our lawsuits because we believe that the public has a right to know about the volume and type of national security requests we receive," they said in a joint statement.
