Swiss-Based Bitcoin Trading App Relai Raises $12M for Europe Expansion

The Series A round was led by Ego Death Capital, with participation from Plan B Bitcoin Fund, Timechain, and Solit Group.

Updated Dec 10, 2024, 11:06 a.m. UTCPublished Dec 10, 2024, 11:00 a.m. UTC

What to know:

Bitcoin only VC Ego Death Capital contributed $4 million to Relai’s funding round.
The plan is to use the new funding to expand further into Europe and become licensed under the new Markets in Crypto Assets regime (MICA).

Relai, a bitcoin (BTC) buy, sell and self-custody application, has raised $12 million Series A funding.

The Switzerland-based company's Series A was led by Ego Death Capital, a bitcoin only VC, which committed $4 million to the raise. Other participants included Plan B Bitcoin Fund, Timechain, and Solit Group.

Following the maxim of “not your keys, not your coins,” trusted self-custody has proved popular in Switzerland, even among newcomers to crypto, according to Relai, which has had over 400,000 downloads.

The plan is to use the new funding to expand further into Europe and become licensed under the new Markets in Crypto Assets regime (MICA), Relai said in a press release.

"Despite the tough market conditions, our financing round was heavily oversubscribed. This fresh capital will massively accelerate our growth and support our mission to educate and onboard millions of Europeans to Bitcoin." said Julian Liniger, co-founder and CEO of Relai, in a statement.

Ian Allison

Ian Allison is a senior reporter at CoinDesk, focused on institutional and enterprise adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Prior to that, he covered fintech for the International Business Times in London and Newsweek online. He won the State Street Data and Innovation journalist of the year award in 2017, and was runner up the following year. He also earned CoinDesk an honourable mention in the 2020 SABEW Best in Business awards. His November 2022 FTX scoop, which brought down the exchange and its boss Sam Bankman-Fried, won a Polk award, Loeb award and New York Press Club award. Ian graduated from the University of Edinburgh. He holds ETH.