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I bet you didn’t know Chicago is home to an emerging Bitcoin company. Glidera, which quietly announced its presence in April, is Chicago’s first and only Bitcoin startup, at least as far as its co-founder David Ripley is concerned.
It makes sense though that a Bitcoin company would start up in Chicago: the city has an increasingly growing tech scene and a strong background in finance (just think of big shots like Braintree, Discover, thinkorswim, OptionXpress and Morningstar).
Ripley, formerly part of Boston Consulting Group’s Chicago team, and co-founder Michael Xakellis, founder of Lake Forest-based SaaS company Common Goal Systems, said they saw Chicago’s market “as a fantastic opportunity” for Bitcoin.
“I’ve been in Chicago my whole life and my co-founder has been in Chicago, in the tech industry for over two decades,” Ripley said. “With Chicago’s prominence in the technology space and historically strong financial presence, Chicago certainly shouldn’t be a place that’s counted out from digital currency at any angle.”
Why Chicago, why now?
Yes, Ripley admits there are more Bitcoin companies and Bitcoin investors on either coast, but he said his team has seen “a lot of positive energy” around Bitcoin here in Chicago whether through informal conversations with investors, at Bitcoin meetups or at tech hubs like Catapult and 1871.
The reason people are getting excited is that Glidera is stepping into the Bitcoin space at seemingly the perfect time: many companies have gone before them and failed (quite publically, might I add). Because of this, Glidera knows what it has to do to successfully release its full range of products and services for consumers and merchants, which it is aiming to do in the second half of 2014.
Getting the product to launch
“This is different from a typical product release: we will not launch before it is actually ready,” Ripley said. “That is how we end up being one of those failed Bitcoin companies launched before us. We are the next-generation Bitcoin company that’s looking to take the right approach.”
The No. 1 thing Glidera’s team, which consists of the co-founders and four software engineers, is focusing on leading up to launch is security and compliance.
“What keeps us up at night is moving faster as a company,” Ripley said. “The only thing slowing us down is our conscious, deliberate approach to make sure we get the security right and invest in those areas.”
Opportunity in the Bitcoin market
As long as Glidera works with regulators and prioritizes protecting consumers (which the engineers are constantly working on via testing environments with simulated merchants and simulated Bitcoin), the company can snag a piece of the growing Bitcoin market.
Tens of thousands of merchants in the US are already accepting Bitcoin, Ripley said, because of the “inherent benefits” of the digital currency, namely lower friction with transactions and access to more consumers including the unbanked population.
“We are excited about the market; it’s been an upward trend...with many peaks and valleys,” Ripley said. “We see ourselves as a part of that third generation of companies taking that step to actually bring those fantastic benefits of Bitcoin to individuals and businesses.”
Photo credit: Shutterstock
