ShapeShift AG, an instant exchange for Bitcoin digital currency and other blockchain assets, announced on Tuesday it secured $10.4 million Series A funding round, which was led by Berlin-based Earlybird with participants from Lakestar, Access Venture Partners, Pantera Capital, and Blockchain Capital.

The company, which was founded nearly three years ago, stated it helps customers convert between them, for example exchanging a token on the Bitcoin blockchain for a token on the Ethereum blockchain. The digital asset exchange has grown an average of 48 percent per month since launching just under three years ago. ShapeShift also operates under a strict “no fiat” policy, meaning only legitimate blockchain-based assets (no government money) are permitted on the platform. Christian Nagel, Partner at Earlybird, stated:

“ShapeShift’s team built a compelling crypto exchange engine which can be easily integrated into third-party products given its unique trustless design. It is uncommon to find the powerful combination of a noted serial Bitcoin entrepreneur, a senior team with deep industry knowledge, and a strong vision as the one present at ShapeShift.”

Erik Voorhees, Founder and CEO of ShapeShift, also commented:

“When we started ShapeShift, a future world of natively digital assets was very theoretical. Yet this world is quickly arriving; one in which millions of forms of digital value, from access keys to tokenized derivative contracts to video game items, will trade between people and machines all over the world, every second of every day. Just as information has gone natively digital, so too now goes value. Bitcoin taught a skeptical world how to do it, and the gold rush is on.”

Paul Veradittakit, Partner at Pantera, then noted:

“Pantera believes in a future where myriads of digital assets will facilitate innovative use cases and products. ShapeShift has done a tremendous job providing a seamless way to exchange such assets, and is spearheading this vision with upcoming financial products. Most importantly, we invested in ShapeShift because of our confidence in Erik, whom we’ve known for a while and has demonstrated the leadership and qualities to succeed in this space.”

ShapeShift added that the funds from the Series A round would be mainly used for further expansion of the team to keep up with its rapid growth and to release two exchange products in 2017.