Ledger raises a 1.3M€ seed round to accelerate the development of its Bitcoin security solutions

The 1.3M€ seed was lead by XAnge Capital, accompanied by Pascal Gauthier (ex COO Criteo), Hi-Pay (Hi-Media group), Fred Potter (NetAtmo), Thibaut Faurès Fustel de Coulanges (VP Rentabiliweb Group) and Alain Tingaud Innovations.

“Ledger is an example of an innovation that’s happening that could make it much easier and safer to use Bitcoins”

Gavin Andersen (Chief Scientist, Bitcoin Foundation) in Fortune

Since 2013, Ledger is developping security solutions to solve the enormous problems Bitcoin users are facing: protecting their private keys. First by launching the HW1 and then by unveiling the Ledger Nano last December, Ledger has demonstrated its know-how in the field of hardware wallets.

“Having successfully closed our seed round only two months after the public launch of our first consumer ready product is not only showing the growing interest for the Bitcoin ecosystem, but also the very strong technical differentiator Ledger is bringing to the industry” Eric Larchevêque, CEO

The Ledger’s team of 11 engineers and 4 supports crew, led by CTO Nicolas Bacca, boasts decades of expertise in the fields of security, cryptography, secure elements, embedded hardware and UX design.

Ledger’s vision

Bitcoin, and other future blockchain applications, cannot scale and achieve mass adoption without simple yet powerful solutions to secure user’s digital identities (private keys).
Ledger mission is to develop and leverage its core secure operating system LedgerOS in the most diverse set of secure devices and architectures: smartcards (Ledger Nano, Ledger Proton, Ledger Blue…), Hardware Security Modules (Ledger Enterprise) and Trusted Execution Environments (Ledger Trustlet).
Hardware wallets, or digital identity security systems, must be eventually perceived as a commodity. Only horizontal integration, as well as extremely low cost per user, is compatible with global mass adoption.
Traditional security is based on obscurity (closed source, closed hardware). Bitcoin demonstrated a much more powerful approach based on full openness and distributed consensus. Thus, Ledger aims to bring convergence between open source and physical security.

The roadmap

Having secured a substantial seed round, Ledger can focus on developing its product line and expanding its worldwide presence.
By opening its US subsidiary, Ledger Technology Inc., and opening offices in San Francisco, Ledger sets a strong foot in the Silicon Valley. Expect us to be present in all major startups events to raise awareness about our solutions and vision!
In 2015, the product line development will be revolving around customer centric applications:

• Improving the Ledger Wallet experience, with a new second factor, Android and iOS companion apps and a lot of features to leverage the power of HD wallet technology.
• Finalizing the Ledger Blue, to target availability in Q4 2015. The Blue is a secure element based harware wallet integrating a display and a keyboard.
• Launching LedgerOS TEE integration: world’s first real life application running on a trusted execution environment. Private key security and transaction validation do not rely on an external device, but on a secure Operating System running on a secure enclave of the application processor, directly inside the smartphone

Enterprise solutions based on hardware security modules are planned for 2016. Acting like a Nano on steroids, Ledger’s HSM solutions will be able to control, secure and sign hundreds of transactions per seconds for exchanges, wallet APIs and enterprise payments applications.

By capitalizing on its expertise and advanced technology in the field, Ledger aims to become the world leader in securing the digital identities of tomorrow.