While it may look like a sleek remodel of an old-school Nokia brick phone, the Foundation Devices Passport is actually an airgapped cryptocurrency wallet built to securely store Bitcoin offline.
Foundation has sold thousands of these hardware wallets over the last 18 months, according to the company. And in March, it released Passport Batch 2, an updated version of its flagship product.
The Boston startup, which was founded in April 2020, aims to take its products to the next level after raising a $7 million seed round led by Polychain Capital.
Foundation said in a statement that it will use the new capital to expand its team and to continue to help users “reclaim their digital sovereignty” with transparent, open source hardware and software products. And while there are other hardware wallets on the market, Foundation said Passport takes security to the next level by assembling its devices in the U.S.
In addition to its flagship hardware device, Foundation has also developed a mobile app, Envoy, that features a Bitcoin software wallet. The company said Envoy offers an intuitive user experience and is optimized for privacy by using the Tor network, an open source software that anonymizes web traffic by encrypting it and routing it through multiple servers before it reaches its destination.
“As the line between the physical and digital world continues to blur, we are excited to continue delivering decentralized products that usher in a new era of freedom and prosperity for users across the globe,” Zach Herbert, the company’s co-founder and CEO said in a statement. “This seed round marks just the beginning of our journey to build the world’s first sovereign computing platform.”
