Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, participated in a US$16 million Series B fundraising program to invest in US-based digital wallet start-up Abra, the new firm said on Monday.
Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), invested an undisclosed amount via its venture subsidiary, HCM International, Abra said.
“We’ve added some great investors, including Foxconn’s venture subsidiary HCM International, Silver8 Capital and Ignia,” Abra cofounder and chief executive officer Bill Barhydt said in a blog post on the company’s Web site.
Barhydt said that Abra’s existing investors — Arbor Ventures, American Express Ventures, Jungle Ventures, Lehrer Hippeau and RRE — also participated in the fundraiser that closed on Monday.
The program helped Abra reach more than US$35 million in total capital, Barhydt said, but did not elaborate on potential uses of the additional US$16 million.
Founded in Saratoga, California, in 2014, Abra provides a bitcoin-based digital wallet app that enables users to buy, sell, send and store bitcoin with blockchain technology.
The beta version of the app was launched on the iOS and Android operating systems in 2015 and was introduced globally this year, according to company data.
Barhydt, quoting a meeting with HCM founding managing director Jack Lee (李仁傑), said that HCM believes in Abra’s vision that open, Internet-based blockchain technology can usher in a new era of financial inclusion and access to capital for billions of consumers.
HCM’s participation was Hon Hai’s latest investment in online financing technology.
A Hon Hai subsidiary, FnConn Financial (富金通金服), in March collaborated with Chinese peer-to-peer marketplace lending company Dianrong (點融網) to launch China’s first blockchain platform.
The platform leverages advanced financial technology to meet the needs of supply chain finance in China, delivering needed capital to smaller suppliers in the nation’s manufacturing sector, FnConn’s Web site says.
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