Swedish Bank SEB Becomes A Co-Owner Of Bitcoin Company Coinify

Aug 02, 2016 at 14:19 // News
Author
Nina Lyon

Swedish bank SEB (Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken) becomes a new co-owner of Bitcoin company Coinify.

Danish newspaper FinansWatch published the first details on the SEB investment in Coinify. SEB is registered as new co-owner with a shareholding of 5-9.99% since July 13, states the Danish publication to the corporate database biq.dk.

Christian Visti Larsen, former CFO at Coinify and now CEO of NewBanking, gave an exclusive comment to the CoinIdol.com world cryptocurrency news outlet. He states:

“I´m very happy to see that copenhagen Fintech companies can attract investment from Sweden. Traditionally the investments are going into Sweden.
It’s going to be interesting to see if there is a trend building up - especially with UK leaving the EU.”

Christian Visti Larsen

Following the investment, SEB’s investment managers Stefan Olofsson and Filip Petersson joined the board of directors at Coinify, where Filip Petersson has been appointed deputy director at Coinify.  Hans Henrik Hoffmeyer, a senior vice president of mobile services at Nets, and Lars Andersen from Seed Capital also got roles on the board.
They were unavailable for comment at the time of publication.

Details and rumors about the investment

An expert from Copenhagen, who is close to the Coinify company, but that wants to retain anonymity commented:

“Coinify has had a hard time picking up on transaction in the market and has been looking for an investment for quite some time. I think this was an all or nothing deal - and I have NO idea why SEB would make this investment.”

PS. After the publication

Mark Højgaard, CEO Coinify

Soon after the publication, Mark Højgaard, CEO of Coinify reached out to CoinIdol.com to protest against the anonymous comments of former Coinify staff members, whose anonymity we retain.  He refused to give an official comment that we can publish, but stated that an official press-release with his position will be prepared by the end of August 3, 2016.  

CoinIdol.com will follow the situation over this investment.

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