Bitmain, a Beijing-based Bitcoin mining giant, recently announced an investment of $1.6 million in Series A funding round of BitKan, a Bitcoin-focused data and trading services provider.

The mining firm is the sole investor in the BitKan’s latest round that follows the angel round investment from Lanqi Venture Capital Investment last November, Bitcoin Magazine reported. According to reports, BitKan secured an undisclosed “multi-million” yuan in angel funding from Lanqi Venture Capital.

Launched in October 2013, Shenzen-based BitKan initially offered aggregated Bitcoin news and allowed traders to buy and sell coins using its partner exchanges BTCChina, Yunbi, and Bter. It was only recently that the company started offering over-the-counter (OTC) Bitcoin trading services. 

Speaking to CoinDesk, BitKan CEO Liu Yang said that the company aims to expand to the United States and focus on non-BTC areas to maintain flexibility. 

"We will register a company in the U.S. as the first step of our globalization strategy. This is the reason that we need investment. We will plan to expand into non-BTC areas to maintain maximum flexibility facing uncertain market condition, but we believe that the soundness of our plans eventually show if we continue to focus on creating values for our customers,” Yang said.

Sharif Allayarov, sales and marketing manager for Bitmain, told Bitcoin Magazine that the two companies were already collaborating in areas such as advertisement and promotion of Bitmain products, and the company decided to invest in BitKan to help expand its over-the-counter Bitcoin trading services. 

“We decided to invest in BitKan to help expand its OTC (Over the Counter) business.” Allayaov said. “It is a very attractive business that will provide a platform for people all over the world to trade bitcoin, especially to those living in non-mature bitcoin markets such Africa, South America, and India.”

Headquartered in Beijing, China, Bitmain has subsidiary corporations located in Hong Kong, San Francisco, Shenzhen, and Chengdu. Its customers are located in more than 100 countries around the world. In addition to consistently releasing high performance mining chips and computers, Bitmain also maintains a highly reliable mining pool, cloud hashing services, and custom solutions for blockchain applications. It also operates several brands including Antminer, Antpool, and Hashnest.