LONDON — Blockchain, the world’s biggest provider of digital wallets, is establishing a presence in San Francisco for the first time after acquiring Bay Area startup Tsukemen.
UK-headquartered Blockchain announced the deal on Wednesday but did not disclose terms. Tsukemen is an early stage app-development company founded by Thianh Lu, who previously founded and sold file-sharing product Cloudup.
The four-person Tsukemen team will be joining Blockchain as part of the deal and Lu will become Blockchain’s new Head of Design. Lu said in a statement: “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to build Blockchain’s West Coast presence, and can’t wait to share what’s coming next.”
The Tsukemen deal means Blockchain will now have offices in four cities across the world: London, New York, Luxembourg, and San Francisco.
Blockchain provides digital wallets for people to store their cryptocurrencies in and over 24 million around the world use Blockchain’s wallets. The company is also designing financial services infrastructure based on the principles of digital currencies and their underlying technology.
Blockchain founder and CEO Peter Smith said: “It is rare to find such diverse and remarkable talent within a single team, and I feel lucky to have added the creative individuals behind Tsukemen to Blockchain.
“With such a capable group at its helm, I know that our West Coast office will be instrumental in helping us scale operations and continue building best-in-class products to serve our customers.”
Tsukemen’s team include Fred Cheng, the creator of Simplenote, one of Apple’s best Mac apps of 2013, and Wall Street Journal, AOL, and Automattic alum Min Wei.
Blockchain raised $40 million last June and has expanded rapidly since then. The company has doubled its headcount in the last eight months and says it plans to double in size again by the end of this year. Recent big hires include Breanne Madigan, who left Goldman Sachs to become Blockchain’s head of institutional sales and strategy, and Peter Wilson, formerly of Google and Facebook, who is now Blockchain’s vice president of engineering.
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