Bitcoin Forum

I represent Bittiraha.fi which is the leading Bitcoin service provider in the Finnish market. We are running an open funding round at Invesdor which is a Nordic crowdfunding platform.

We have a short pitch video which is a good start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFT-lwX410Q

The detailed pitch can be seen by registering to Invesdor website: https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427?token=f30988c60e9a202e6398a5e9f14c6d76. Registration does not cost anything nor does it have any obligations.

Basic facts of the funding round

- We are looking for a funding of at least 150 000 € and at most 500 000 €.
- Valuation is set at 2 750 000 € pre-funding.

Investment Proposal Summary

• Company
◦ Pioneer Bitcoin company from Finland, in operation since 2012
◦ Core development team working with bitcoin since 2011
◦ Strong growth from 2012 to 2015
◦ Processed EUR 20 million in transactions to date
◦ Current monthly transaction volume approximately EUR 1 million
◦ 20 000 unique customers, over 65 000 processed orders
◦ Long term partnerships with some of the largest companies in bitcoin
ecosystem
◦ Pipeline of high value business lines and innovations to support future
growth

• Market globally
◦ PE investments by the end of 2014 USD 433 million
◦ Largest PE investments to bitcoin companies have been USD 20-30
million
◦ 361 ATM in operation, 750 forecasted by the end of 2015
◦ Over 80 000 merchants accepting bitcoin
◦ Finland has a clear regulatory environment on bitcoin

• Business lines
◦ Bitcoin brokerage – largest volume in Finland
◦ Bitcoin ATMs – largest ATM network in the Nordics
◦ Bill payment gateway – largest volume in Finland
◦ Bitcoin salary gateway and integration to HR software
◦ Online store for security products

• New business pipeline
◦ Remittance
◦ Physical Bitcoins
◦ Offline transaction processing
◦ Secure storage / offline vault
◦ Bitcoin ETF

• Investments
◦ Can be done in EUR (through Invesdor) or in bitcoin (directly)
◦ Minimum investment through Invesdor is 335 EUR (20 shares)
◦ Direct option (bitcoin) only for large investments (over 10k EUR)

I saw a video about Bittiraha on the front page of /r/bitcoin the other day. While I'm in no place to doubt their claims of being a legitimate company since year 2012, I can't help but ask why a company working for that long would ask for 150.000 - 500.000 € in crowdfunding out of the blue.

The questions this move sparks are many actually.

Why crowdfunding instead of private funding? Where are more details about this? What are those shares?

We've had solid funding from our income almost from day 1. We had a smaller funding round (105 000 €) a year ago to boost our operations and we actually received most of the funding in bitcoins directly.

However we don't have enough income to pursue growth in the way we'd like. We have an excellent team but most of our developers are half-time because we can't afford to have them full-time. With the funding we can actually pursue the projects that could allow us to compete in the bigger arenas.

Our first funding round in early 2014 was a private funding round. This time we decided crowdfunding is the best way to go, for 2 reasons. First, we have a large network of customers and users. Over 20 000 Finnish people have used our exchange services and our website is also the #1 news, blogs & forum portal for the Finnish Bitcoin community.

In addition we believe that the crowdfunding round itself can give us even more visibility, not only in Finland but elsewhere as well. Some of our upcoming products are fully international which means we want to get more visibility outside of Finland.

The detailed pitch can be seen by registering to Invesdor website: https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427?token=f30988c60e9a202e6398a5e9f14c6d76. Registration does not cost anything nor does it have any obligations.

It's kind of weird how the info is not visible at first sight. Thanks for the update though, seems clearer now. It's not that onbvious that all this information would be available upon registering.

You're right. It may be that the way Invesdor has chosen to do this is not optimal. We will try to be clear about this in our marketing so that everyone knows there is much more to be seen inside.

How many bitcoin ATM's do you have in Finland? Can you tell more about their statistics and what your plans are for the next 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years?

If you are trying to raise capital here it means you are no better than every other offering that has ever gone before in bitcointalk/securities, i.e. Doomed.

We have 8 active locations in Finland. The volume has been growing surprisingly well recently. We believe one reason is that there has been a lot of talk locally about how local Bitcoin companies have to give information to authorities. Tax people, customs, other authorities. However our ATM's run with pretty much no verifications or checks (unless the amounts are really high, over 15k€). It's more anonymous than doing bank transfer based trading. This could be why especially recently we've seen an ATM trading volume increase.

Our most recent and best location is our first 2-way ATM and we have been positively surprised by the selling volume. Lots of people want to sell their bitcoins and get cash. Cash is, once again, more anonymous.

Our strategy is to first of all make sure all of our ATM's are in excellent locations. Malls, seaports, airports. And we want to upgrade all of the good locations to 2-way. Then we will expand based on the demand. If there is demand, we invest more in the ATM's. This is a gradual process.

In terms of our ATM business we are not currently thinking about international markets. We still have work to do in this area in Finland alone. We have other services that we are planning to push internationally. The ATM network is relatively light on our resources to operate over here but doing this kind of business abroad would require a lot of resources.

I can assure you that Bitcointalk is not our number #1 channel for raising capital. However I don't see why I shouldn't. Any channel is a plus.

Status: 18 500 € raised during the first 4 days. Tomorrow the offering will go public on Invesdor website. It has been in "hidden mode" so far.

this is a bit of a basic question, but if shares are bought and you are successful, how and where can we cash out the shares (is there a market to trade them)? Or, is the idea that dividends will be given out according to profits?

Currently we give out yearly dividends payed out in bitcoin. We're looking at giving out quarterly dividends. As far as trading the shares, I have good news regarding that as well. We are going to list our company on Privanet (http://www.privanet.fi/en/quotations) which is a place where shares of companies like ours can be easily traded.

Bump for this great website. The Finnish market isn't small, and I'm sure this could do well.

Good luck!

Update.

Today Invesdor made our offering public on their website: https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en

Also we have now raised over 20 000 €.

Funding round day #6. We have raised over 30 000 € which means we have over 20% of our minimum target!

What do you consider as major threats to your business? How sustainable it is?

There are threats on multiple levels. The largest ones that stand out are regulation and competition. The regulatory environment in Finland is especially good for Bitcoin companies which means that I'm not too worried about this threat at the moment. In fact it's something we have an advantage in. Things may change of course, but at the moment it is looking good.

Clearly the number #1 threat is competition. Major international Bitcoin companies are the biggest threat and there is local competition as well.

The most important thing to understand is that we are not a 1 trick pony. We are constantly coming up with new business lines and we try to stay one step ahead of the situation in regards to competition.

We also believe in the power of co-operation. We've worked together closely with companies such as BitPay, Bitstamp and Lamassu. We want to make strategic partnerships with Bitcoin companies when we feel it's beneficial.

Funding round week update #1. Our offer (https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427) has been public for 1 week. We've had a strong start, here are the numbers:

- We have raised over 35 000 €
- We have reached 23% of our minimum target
- Over 30 new investors are part of the round
- Our presentation video has over 2 000 views

The funding round is still on for the next 55 days. We still have ways to go before we reach our target but with your help we can do it. Every small investment helps us reach our goal.

This sounds honest and realistic. I ll see if I can get in, at least a bit.

This is an interesting security w/ a seemingly solid team and foundation behind it but I was wondering what the expected quarterly dividends will look like. The market sounds fresh and growing but I know pretty much nothing about Scandinavia and the lives that are lead up over there.

Id love to provide some context on Scandinavia:

Countries include Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and often Iceland and Estonia are considered part of the 'group'.

These countries have an extremely high quality of life with excellent education. Economically citizens are generally well off and especially Norway has a huge amount of wealth and a very high GDP. There is virtually no poverty and healthcare & higher education is free.

The area is highly advanced technologically, with Nokia, Linux, and Angry-birds all originating from Finland. I expect that Scandinavians will embrace digital currency much faster then almost any other area in the world. Finland is an excellent base of operation for Bittiraha.

As for Bittiraha, I can vouch for them. I bought my first Casascius coins from them long ago, and they were very helpful (plug: check out my Casascius eBook linked in my sig!)

As far as dividends are concerned I would not expect much for this year at least. We will not have a positive net income for the current financial year. Our strategy as a startup is more long term, we need to spend money to improve our team by raising more team members to full time positions and making new strategic recruitments. There are also other investments that may be necessary such as getting more 2-way ATM's.

This basically means that in the early years we're not even looking to make a profit. It's more about making the right investments that allow us to make a huge profit in the future. So if one is to invest in our company, it is most definitely an investment best thought of as a project that takes many years.

We do plan to make a profit on the next financial year though which starts the 1st of April. And we're looking at paying quarterly dividends as soon as possible. Also our dividends are already payed 100% in bitcoin. We payed small dividends in the first 2 financial years but for this year it's likely there will be no dividends since we made lots of investments in 2014 which result in a negative net income for this financial year. Building the largest ATM network in the Nordics and building a 10-person team did not come without cost.

Thanks for the comments^^ and I guess the best thing investors can hope for is a very talented team that is doing all the necessary things to make the future brighter.

Is there a link to a proper business plan and revenue projections?

You mentioned a forecasted loss in year 1, what is my forecasted ROI, what % of company is being sold?

It's nice to hear that you're interested!

You can check our full pitch at https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427. Simply register to Invesdor (free & no obligations) and go through our presentation. There is also some additional information in the Investor Forum.

What would be my expected annual ROI on 200 shares for example?
I know this depends on market conditions but I would like to hear your best guess.

In terms of valuation we can look at past performance as a benchmark. Our company valuation has approximately doubled every year. In our first funding round in early 2014 we were valued at 1,5 million EUR and now we're valued at 2,75 million EUR. In years 2012 & 2013 we didn't have an official valuation but my estimate is that it has doubled every year.

The only sensible way to calculate annual ROI is the appreciation of our valuation since we are not aiming at making a lot of profit now and giving out dividends or something like that. We consider a break-even result a good one at this stage, since we're in it for the long haul. Any profits we make are primarily turned into spending that can help us grow more.

It is of course planned that this stage will end at some point but right now there is so much potential for growth that aiming at anything else would not be a sensible long term strategy.

So if you are making no money where is this valuation coming from?  Surely your assets aren't worth north of 3million?

Goodwill?  Sorry, people don't pay for that anymore.

We are "making money" in the sense that we have growing revenue and sales. Our commission sales (which are on average 2.5% of the trading volume in our services) have increased yearly from 40k€ to 200k€ to our current 300k€. For a startup company this is more important than making a profit.

At the same time we've recruited more people to our team. Currently we have a 10-people high level team with 3 working full-time and the rest part-time. We have also made investments to Bitcoin ATM's.

We have by far the most known Bitcoin brand in Finland and we're also the clear market leader here in terms of users and sales. We have upcoming international services such as the next generation Physical Bitcoins we're unveiling next week. In general we have solid plans for significant growth.

Our most exciting project at the moment is something I can only hint at, due to it being a bit sensitive. Personally I think this could be our chance to really make it big. I can only say that it involves sending & receiving Bitcoin transactions offline. The creator of "Kryptoradio" works in our company and the technology I'm talking about isn't Kryptoradio. It's Kryptoradio on steroids. Something no one has thought of yet (except us).

I can talk more about this "secret project" but only with serious investors who are looking at investing 10k€ or more. And with NDA signed of course.

For anyone interested in investing in Bittiraha.fl's IPO with Bitcoins. In collaboration with Bittiraha.fl,
Alcurex exchange is now offering this opportunity to anyone who wishes to buy Bittiraha shares with Bitcoins.

Buy with bitcoin here : Bittiraha - BTC (https://alcurex.org/index.php/crypto/market?pair=btrha_btc)

is the requirement still the equivalent of over 10k EUR minimum if one registers at alcurex and buys shares there or can one buy in batches of 20 shares on alcurex or maby there is no restriction there so one can buy 9 shares, 57 shares or 1234 shares or something like that ?
Is there any list where you have ATMs so people can support the company they invests in by using there services, is there any close to Sweden or in places frequently visited by Swedes like Åland, turkku/Åbo, Helsinki/Helsingfors maby ?

About shares on alcurEX.
You can buy under 20 amount. (min. around 0.0001 Share)
If total sale reach 20 shares..  over 20 shares is already sold :)
we will register those via invesdor IPO and that way it will help to get min 10K sale.

The 10k minimum is simply a total minimum for us to take bitcoin investments directly (not through Invesdor or alcurEX). If you invest through Invesdor (which is the #1 method), it is EUR only with a minimum of 335 EUR. If you invest through alcurEX, you can invest with small bitcoin amounts.

All our ATM's are listed at https://bittimaatti.fi/locations?&lang=en. All 8 are located in Finland.

We're soon going to launch our first fully international brand & product line by the way. I'm very excited about this. Months of work and it's almost here. I'll announce it soon.

We have now launched the next generation Physical Bitcoin! The website is https://denarium.com/.

Official press release can be read from the Bitcointalk thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1019684.0

57 000 € funded so far. That is 38% of our minimum target. 39 days left to invest.

Thanks for the info, i will try one the next time im over in Finland, we only have two bitcoin ATMs awaliable in Sweden sofar i think, one on Hilton Hotel in Stockholm and another one in bitcoinambassaden also in Stockholm.

Funding round update!

- 63 000 € raised.
- 42% of minimum goal reached.
- 71 investors.
- 35 days left to invest.

https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427

This operation is very worthy of consideration in terms of investment as they have the whole of Finland under their belt and likely more. Never been there nor have dreamt of it but I'm thinking of it and owning a share or two. I just hope many people there speak english. :)

The vast majority of under 50 year old people speak atleast some english.

Invesdor is the first equity crowdfunding platform in Europe to get EU license.

https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/media/news/327

Update on our product development. Within 2 weeks we will launch a new exchange service under Bittiraha.fi. It's a service that allows the instant purchase of bitcoins.

This service you do not register to. You do not fill forms. You do not start looking for your credit card numbers or online banking codes. Just a couple of clicks, and you have coins. I have not seen anyone in the world enable a fiat -> bitcoin exchange service with as low friction as this service has, and I'm waiting for the launch eagerly.

This service is such that we're looking at launching an international version of it as soon as possible.

Less than 4 weeks left to invest! It's completely possible that our company is not raising money via crowdfunding again which means that for small investors this is the only shot at getting on board.

https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427

Funding round is progressing quite nicely! We will have a high level international advisory board after the round is over.

We have raised over 50% of our minimum target and the sprint to the finish has begun!

https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427

We have multiple international players joining our company advisory board. One of them is working as head of global strategy at a Finnish company with multi billion EUR revenue.

When I'm talking about internationalization, I'm not joking. Our advisory board has significant contacts especially in the developing markets which are at our disposal for our future internationalization projects.

We are aiming to grow and to seriously challenge the other large players in this industry.

I published a new article at LinkedIn which is about investing in our company. Take a look.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/investment-proposal-henry-brade

My new interview has been published at Invesdor. Check it out!

https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/media/blog/336

Our funding round pitch video has been watched over 3000 times! If you haven't seen it yet, check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFT-lwX410Q

90 000 € raised. 60% of target reached. Share issue open for 10 days.

https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/35lk51/i_just_invested_in_finlands_leading_bitcoin/

100k raised, 2/3 of target reached, 1 week left to invest!

https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427

Share issue is closing soon. Here are 3 reasons to invest:

#1: We are one of the most promising startups in an industry where it's possible to see growth curves in the shape of a hockey stick.
#2: By investing in us you will support the growth of the Bitcoin economy and the Finnish economy.
#3: All shareholders get discounts on our services which can be a great deal if you're a Bitcoin user.

More information in my pitch summary at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/investment-proposal-henry-brade

I put up an AMA thread today to Reddit. There I answer questions related to our company. It has been #1 in r/Bitcoin for a while now.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/361s80/i_am_henry_brade_ceo_of_the_leading_bitcoin/

77% (over 3/4) of our target funding has now been reached. The completion of our minimum target is very likely at this point.

Investing is possible only for a couple of days!

https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427

Wonderful, this is exciting and is well worth the wait on this. Good things coming.

Happy to announce that Khalid Aziz, the Head of Global Strategy for Nokia, is joining our company advisory board. He has excellent skills in business development, strategy and internationalization. 

And by the way, our share issue is still open for a couple of days.

https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427

I published a new update to our funding round investor forum.

https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427/threads

Our minimum goal has been fulfilled!! Still 1.5 days left to invest.

https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427

Incredible finish. We're at almost 200k. 7 hours left to invest.

At 212k now! Less than 3 hours left.

It's the final call!

https://www.invesdor.com/finland/en/pitches/427

Congrats!

Thanks! The final result was 227,203 € raised. We had a very strong finish indeed.