Strike Raises $80M to Grow Its Bitcoin-Based Payment Network

Digital payment provider Strike, which is built on the Bitcoin Lightning Network, has raised $80 million in a Series B funding round, which it will use to grow, expand existing partnerships and launch new partnerships.

Strike provides both businesses and consumers with the ability to get cheaper, faster, global payments, and it will use the new capital to boost its efforts to “revolutionize payments” for large merchants, marketplaces and financial institutions (FIs), the company said Tuesday (Sept. 27) in a press release.

“Enabling a cheaper, faster and open payment network with some of the biggest financial institutions in the world isn’t fast and easy, but it’s happening,” Strike Founder and CEO Jack Mallers said in the release. “Every company that’s in the business of moving money is interested in superior payments, and we’re in talks with many of them.”

The funding round follows Strike’s public launch of its flagship application programming interface (API) that leverages the Bitcoin Lightning Network to allow instant payments and offer an alternative to traditional card networks and interchange fees, according to the release.

Initial integrations include Blackhawk, NCR and Shopify point-of-sale (POS) and eCommerce platforms, the release stated.

As PYMNTS reported in April, Strike’s deals to bring crypto payments to Blackhawk, NCR and Shopify brought bitcoin — which was originally designed as a peer-to-peer (P2P) payments tool — back to its roots as a potentially serious alternative to the payments industry.

Read more: Bringing Bitcoin Firmly Into Payments, Strike Partners With NCR, Shopify, Blackhawk

At the Bitcoin 2022 cryptocurrency conference in Miami April 7, Mallers said major retailers would be able to use the network to receive payments in cash or, if they choose, bitcoin.

In the Tuesday press release about the new funding round, Mallers said: “We’re moving full speed ahead not just to integrate Strike’s revolutionary payments with leading merchants, but globally, with a variety of businesses and partners to innovate and deliver on more financial inclusion.”

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