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Mexico City, January 31^st 2017 –  The Mexican venture capital firm IGNIA has announced today its investment in the Mexico- based startup AirTM, a company that has created an easy, secure and low cost way of moving money in local currency to an AirTM cloud-based USD account (and vice versa). The company has a network of cashiers that connect more than 200 national banking systems and multiple e-money networks such as Paypal, Amazon, Neteller and Skrill. AirTM has more the 50,000 clients in more than 59 countries around the world.

“We believe in the enormous opportunity that exists in being able to offer financial services to consumers and business at a global level, and to do so through innovative solutions developed by Mexican entrepreneurs using bitcoin/blockchain technologies”, commented Alvaro Rodriguez, Co-Founder and Managing Partner in IGNIA.

“We are very excited to work with IGNIA, we believe their experience and knowledge of the financial services sector will help AirTM grow in Mexico and globally”, commented Ruben Galindo, Co-Founder of AirTM.

IGNIA is a venture capital firm that invests in high growth enterprises targeting the emerging middle class of Mexico. Founded in 2007, IGNIA has two funds with US$200 million assets under management. IGNIA invests in sectors such as healthcare, fintech, financial services, education and basic services. For more information please visit: http://www.ignia.mx and @IGNIA_Fund  

Today, at the North American Bitcoin Conference,  I announced the next phase of Abra’s global expansion: Next month, we’ll be enabling Abra worldwide, activating a global network of Tellers who can transact in over 50 currencies, including directly in Bitcoin. This means that anyone with a smartphone in any country can send or receive funds in most major currencies and can cash in or out of their Abra wallet, even without a bank account.

Bitcoin is key to these efforts. While Bitcoin has always been a large part of what we do, it’s been hidden in the background up until now. Last year we launched Abra in the Philippines and the US, and validated that we could release a digital currency product using Bitcoin that didn’t confuse the average consumer. Yes, my 70+ year old mother can use Abra with no help from me. Cool.

Now we’re adding direct Bitcoin support (for depositing and withdrawing) in the Abra App while maintaining the super-user-friendly experience from stage one. Once we launch, any Abra user can use Bitcoin via any third party Bitcoin Wallet to add and remove funds from their Abra App regardless of which currency they’re holding in their Abra Wallet.  (As a reminder Abra is a non-custodial digital currency wallet.  Abra has no access to the user’s private key, even in the instance where the consumer chooses to hold US Dollars.)

We’ll also be launching a network of Abra Tellers – what some people call our Human ATMs – to enable people around the world to use Abra.

So at global launch, we’ll support the following scenarios:

• Bitcoin wallet: Buy, hold, and sell Bitcoin with Abra in addition to any of 50 fiat currencies
• Bitcoin to fiat: Send Bitcoin to anyone worldwide, and the recipient can receive in any of our supported currencies, which they can then cash out via a Teller. The recipient doesn’t even have to know what Bitcoin is, as we’ll take care of the currency conversion.
• Fiat to Bitcoin: Cash in via a Teller in any of our supported currencies (again, without needing to know about Bitcoin), send to anyone worldwide, and the recipient can receive and/or cash out in Bitcoin
• Fiat to fiat: any user can send money in any of our 50+ supported currencies to any other user, and both parties can cash in and out via their local Teller.
• Become a Teller using Bitcoin:  This is huge!  If you’re an existing Bitcoin trader you can now use that Bitcoin to become an Abra Teller and process deposits/withdrawals for people who don’t know what Bitcoin is (Build your own Travelex for digital currency!)

One of the things I’m most excited about is our support for the global Bitcoin trading community.  We estimate that $30-$40 million per week is now traded in person in “fiat vs Bitcoin” in over 75 countries. With our support for Bitcoin Traders as Abra Tellers, Bitcoin Traders can now hold Bitcoin in their Abra App but process deposits and withdrawals in any world currency that the Abra App supports. A consumer holding US Dollars meets a Teller, and processes a withdrawal to receive Argentinian Pesos. Neither party even knows that a dual currency trade transaction took place!  Wow.

This is a huge step forward in realizing our vision of anyone being able to send money easily to anyone else in the world, instantly, privately, and securely. We’ll be rolling our Teller program out globally, starting next month. Tellers can make money while helping their community send and receive money.

If you’re interested in becoming an Abra Teller, we encourage you to apply right away! Please make sure you have the latest app version downloaded, and submit your details right from within the app.  Our onboarding team will contact you as we review applications.

We’re excited for this next stage in our development, and look forward to getting your feedback as we progress!

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Mexico City, January 16, 2017 – The Mexican venture capital firm IGNIA has today announced their investment in Abra (www.goabra.com), a bitcoin-blockchain-enabled mobile wallet and payments company based in Mountain View, California that aims to make sending and receiving payments as easy as sending a text message. Mexico is a key market in Abra’s international expansion efforts; the Company plans to grow rapidly in the country in partnership with IGNIA. Through this investment, IGNIA reasserts its confidence in Mexico’s growing fintech sector and reaffirms its commitment to invest in innovative solutions that foster financial inclusion.

Founded in 2014 by Bill Barhydt, an experienced Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Abra enables its users to store digital cash on their smartphones and send it to other Abra users or merchants anywhere in the world. This is all possible without requiring users to have a bank account or credit card. Additionally, through its network of independent Abra Tellers, Abra will make it easy for its users to add or withdraw funds at thousands of convenient locations across Mexico. The platform leverages Blockchain technology for fast and secure money transfers and payments while protecting the value of users’ holdings in dozens of different currencies. Users can send money instantly to friends and family all over the world in seconds via Abra’s iOS and Android apps. In addition to being more convenient and much quicker, Abra will often cost 50%-85% less than the traditional international money transfer options available today.

“In Mexico, where 60% of the population is unbanked, Abra enables anyone with a smartphone to transfer money locally and cross-border at a lower cost than traditional options,” stated Alvaro Rodriguez, Managing Partner of IGNIA. “We believe in Abra’s extremely experienced management team and the state-of-the-art technology they have developed. We see a huge need for this solution in Mexico and we are excited to work with the team to help them expand.”

In a statement, Bill Barhydt, CEO at Abra, said, “We started Abra to make it possible for the first time, to instantly send money between any two phone numbers in the world. I believe Mexico will be one of the biggest beneficiaries in the world of such a solution. We are grateful for the opportunity to partner with IGNIA to help bring Abra to Mexico.”

IGNIA is a venture capital firm that invests in high growth enterprises targeting the emerging middle class of Mexico. Founded in 2007, IGNIA has two funds with US$200 million assets under management. IGNIA invests in sectors such as healthcare, fintech, financial services, education and basic services. For more information please visit: http://www.ignia.mx and @IGNIA_Fund