One of the earliest bitcoin exchange, wallet and payment startups in South Korea called Coinplug has raised 7.5 billion won, or $6.4 million, from venture arms of major local financial institutions.
 

It was funded from KB Investment, a VC unit of the KB Financial Group which is one of the largest banking institutions in Korea. Also the Mirae Asset Venture Investment, a listed subsidiary of investment bank and securities broker Mirae Asset Daewoo as well as private equity and VC firm Smilegate Investment were the companies that contributed to the funding according to the startup release on thursday.

Coinplug is set to focus on decentralized identification technologies, an area that has drawn greater interest from the Korean government and major banks in the country with the new equity financing.
 
 
  Mirae Asset Venture Investment and KB Investment  also backed Coinplug in series B round to rsise $5million at the time. Presently the new funding is referred to as Series B2 round and it comes four years after the funding of series B round.
 
Coinplug’s participation in Busan‘s efforts to become a major blockchain hub as one of the reasons behind their participation in the financing, according to One investor.
 
Coinplug is working with a wide range of financial institutions such as Shinhan Bank, KB Card, KB Kookmin Bank and Hyundai Card. It is  also actively engaged with a number of government entities, including Korea Post, and with the Busan City Blockchain De-regulatory Zone and the Korea Internet Services Agency (KISA).
 
So far, it has received 98 granted patents from 262 patent applications filed according to the statement.

It equally operates a crypto exchange with a mobile wallet and bitcoin pre-paid card services available at convenient stores in the country. The company was founded in 2013.
 

Credits: Richard Meyer