Canada's bitcoin-focused Vogogo becomes a publicly traded company

Calgary-based bitcoin payment processing and regulatory compliance company Vogogo announced today that it will be trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange’s Venture Exchange (TSXV) under the ticker symbol “VGO.” Although not strictly a bitcoin company, Vogogo made headlines recently for raising $8.5 million to develop a new bitcoin payment system, possibly intended to become Canada’s answer to BitPay.

The move wasn’t exactly hasty, however. Founded as Redfall Technologies in 2008, the company now called Vogogo announced the public launch back in May as part of an amalgamation agreement with AVCA Ltd. and Southtech Capital Corporation. Southtech was already a publicly traded company at the time, and the Vogogo announcement appears to be a resumption of trading under a new symbol rather than truly new product.

CoinDesk spoke with Vogogo CEO Geoff Gordon about the TSXV launch, who noted that the move was motivated be the ability to access additional capital and execute acquisitions. Gordon elaborated, “More importantly, it helps as far as our reputation with banking partners, our ability to secure new banking partners, our ability to provide a sense of comfort to regulators, which to us is all very important stuff when you want to make a big move in the crypto space.”

Vogogo’s bitcoin payment processing service has proven to be a breakout product for the company, with between $6 and $10 million payments handled by the company every month.