Singapore startup Tembusu raises S$1.2m in bridge funding

TEMBUSU Systems, a Singapore startup which in February 2014 unveiled Asia's first Bitcoin ATM in Singapore, announced on Thursday that it has raised S$1.2 million in bridge funding for its TRUST platform.

The latest capital injection now values the company at some S$11 million, said Tembusu in a statement.

This latest funding also includes a "million-dollar vote of confidence" from a Singapore-listed company, which has declined to be named, BT has learnt.

The TRUST platform makes the technology behind cryptocurrency available for use by organisations and individuals and opens up new use cases for cryptocurrency technology because of its new, innovative features that, according to the company, investors and other businesses are keen to implement.

While not a cryptocurrency in itself, TRUST's technology allows banks, governments and corporations to launch their own asset-backed cryptocurrencies, which will likely be much more stable than Bitcoin, said Tembusu. Bitcoin has seen wild price fluctuations and is worth just 25 per cent of what it was worth 12 months ago.

The funding, believed to be the first by a listed company in the region, comes as governments and companies are seriously exploring various levels of cryptocurrency adoption. In Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore has allowed cryptocurrency to be used with some regulation; a number of other countries have banned Bitcoin outright, because of their price stability and anonymity issues, something Tembusu's TRUST platform can address, said the company.