New York-based Coinsetter, which has built a platform for high-speed bitcoin trading, is raising additional venture capital.

According to a Securities and Exchange (SEC) filing, the company is looking to raise a total of $1.5m.

Coinsetter CEO Jaron Lukasiewicz told CoinDesk that the company has already raised most of the funds.

“You can’t see this from the filing, but we have commitments on the majority of the round. We are now in discussions with a few large investors on the remainder. These are mostly VC firms and very high net worth angels,” he said.

Numerous investors from the financial world are involved, according to Lukasiewicz. He said:

“There are a large number of successful people from the hedge fund and finance industry participating in this round. We may disclose more info after we close the round.”

Coinsetter has built a bitcoin trading platform that can execute orders in “milliseconds”, according to its website. It also plans to allow traders to open margin accounts.

The company also has plans to give investors the ability to earn interest on their bitcoin holdings.

Previous funding

Coinsetter has already raised a round of financing last April, getting $500,000 from a group of investors that included Barry Silbert of SecondMarket.

The Bitcoin Investment Trust, operated by SecondMarket, is a fund for accredited investors to get involved with BTC and has amassed over $60m in its first three months of operation.

Both SecondMarket and Coinsetter are attempting to improve bitcoin access for interested investors. A few other startups are also trying to do the same thing.

Vaurum is a company accelerated through Silicon Valley’s Boost VC incubator program. It’s building a platform that plugs into existing brokerages, providing a more mainstream passageway into the bitcoin market for investors.

Singapore-based itBit recently raised $3.25m to bring NASDAQ-based trading technology to bitcoin investors.

Additional personnel

Coinsetter’s Lukasiewicz says that his company is raising more capital because it needs to hire more technical personnel to build up its system.

“We have a huge near-term need to hire at least three Java developers in order to move at a quick pace in bringing important features to market,” he said.

“With a clear scope of what we want to build, this round will allow us to bring new, quality products to market at a fast pace while supporting our growing user base this year.”

Coinsetter is currently in a private beta. To request an invite, prospective users are being asked to submit their names and email addresses on the company’s website to be put on a waiting list for an invite code.

Trading image via Shutterstock