Coinbase raised $100 million in Series D

Coinbase Inc. raised US$100 million with a US$1.6 billion valuation. The virtual currency exchange firm founded by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam in 2012 gets fresh power in funding Series D led by IVP including Spark Capital, Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures, Section 32 and Draper Associates to upgrade systems and services.

Coinbase has facilitated nearly US$15 billion in virtual currency exchange only in the first half of 2017 or 5 times larger than overall in 2016. The company projected a 10-fold increase in transaction volume by the end of 2017 compared to 2016.

The Exchange has experienced problems over the past few months due to the drastic increase in volumes that are unable to accommodate using existing resources. Some of these new funds for upgrades in providing customer support, recruiting engineering teams, and new offices in New York City.

Coinbase has raised approximately US$217 million since its launch in 2012 and has been active for years with hundreds of employees. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and has 7.4 million subscribers it has also added Ethereum in 2016 and Litecoin in 2017.

"The pace of innovation has been on the rise and now we're looking at exciting projects and companies built on digital currencies. We are beginning to move into phase three of our secret master plan," Armstrong said.