Kraken gains $5 million in new funding, GoCoin raises $1.5

The venture capital world has been spreading their money around the bitcoin ecosystem in a big way this week. While much the attention is understandably going to the $17 million raised by Circle, two smaller VC investments may have even bigger impacts in the coming months. San Francisco-based bitcoin exchange Kraken has raised $5 million in Series A funding, while international virtual currency payment platform GoCoin pulled in $1.5 million.

CoinDesk reports that Kraken’s latest round of funding was led by Hummingbird Ventures, a group best known for investing in Dubai-based price comparison platform Souqalmal.com and “object-based software defined storage service” Amplidata.

Kraken, which has limited exposure to the U.S. bitcoin market due to uncertain regulation and skittish banks, may use some of their new funds to claim a piece of turf on their home country. According to Jesse Powell, CEO at Kraken:

We’re really excited, we’ve been putting the round together for a long time, the funding is going to go to development, regulatory stuff, getting all the licenses in the United States and around the world. A lot of it is going to go into legal.”

GoCoin, by contrast, is a very small player at the moment. The company raised $550,000 late last year in an early seed round, but has faced stiff competition from Coinbase and Bitpay, both of which have tens of millions of dollars in their war chests.

Though small, GoCoin has a handful of powerful supporters, including Charles Allen, CEO of Bitcoin Shop, former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta and Crypto Currency Partners, who all contributed to the $1.5 million investment.