South African Bitcoin firm Centbee has announced a sizeable investment following the closing of its Series A investment round.

The investment comes from Calvin Ayre, the founder of Ayre Ventures and cryptocurrency news website CoinGeek. Ayre has reportedly invested £1 million (R18.9 million) in CentBee.

“Centbee has a track record of making Bitcoin easily usable and accessible to everyone including merchants and consumers. They support the original Bitcoin protocol in the form of Bitcoin SV, and have demonstrated an extraordinary ability to attract users and we’re proud to support their further growth,” Ayre said of the decision to invest.

For those that aren’t aware, Bitcoin SV was created last year when Bitcoin Cash was forked. The SV in Bitcoin SV stands for Satoshi Vision.

The deal between Ayre and CentBee was facilitated by blockchain advisory firm, nChain.

It is said that Ayre’s investment in CentBee forms part of a larger plan to advance the Bitcoin SV ecosystem. In fact, nChain will work with CentBee by providing it with technical consulting services.

Co-chief executive officer at CentBee, Angus Brown, welcomed the investment from Ayre adding that it would help the organisation scale.

“Centbee has made it easy for customers to buy Bitcoin SV easily at over 50 000 till points in South Africa,” said Brown. “Through this, we will help people move money simply and cheaply across borders to support family and friends. The investment will be used for product development, scaling and growth.”

Lorien Gamaroff, CentBee’s other co-chief executive officer, said he is excited for CentBee’s next growth spurt.

“Our development roadmap is well defined with exciting payment and remittance products coming to market this year. We look forward to the next phase in our growth and development,” Gamaroff said.

CentBee’s bitcoin wallet is available on both the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.