Beijing-based Bitcoin mining giant Bitmain announced last week that it has invested $1.6 million in BitKan , a Bitcoin data and trading services provider.

According to the company, Bitmain is the sole investor in the Series A funding round after the angel round investment from Lanqi Venture Capital Investment last November.

Based in Shenzen, BitKan initially offered aggregated Bitcoin news and allowed traders to buy and sell coins using its partner exchanges BTCChina , Yunbi and Bter, but the company recently started offering over-the-counter (OTC) Bitcoin trading services.

Speaking to Bitcoin Magazine, Sharif Allayarov, sales and marketing manager for Bitmain, said that Bitmain and BitKan were already cooperating 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."

Founded by former employees of China-based IT giant Huawei and launched in October 2013 , BitKan attracted an undisclosed "multi-million" yuan (1 million Chinese yuan is equivalent to $157,000 USD) in angel funding from Lanqi Venture Capital.

Revealing the company's future plans after the angel funding round, BitKan CEO Liu Yang told CoinDesk 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 told CoinDesk .

As for Bitmain , the company manufactures Bitcoin mining hardware and also operates Antpool , the world's largest Bitcoin mining pool with 28 percent of the network's hashrate.

Following its participation in a February funding round of Israeli payments service Simplex and smart contracts platform Rootstock in March, this month's investment in BitKan reflects Bitmain's growing interest in investing its funds in the wider Bitcoin ecosystem.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.