LONDON (Alliance News) - Kuala Innovations Ltd Monday said it has made an investment to take a 10% stake in Bitcoin and nanopayment provider SatoshiPay Ltd.

The investment company said it acquired the 10% stake in SatoshiPay after purchasing 1,471 shares for EUR108.76 per share, making a total payment of EUR159,985. Based on the price paid by Kuala, SastoshiPay is valued at around EUR1.6 million.

SatoshiPay is developing a two-way payment platform which will enable online content providers to monetise their digital content through the acceptance of nanopayments. Using its platform, online media companies can process nanopayments of 5.0 cents or less with minimal transaction fees.

The platform also allows companies to process transactions higher than 5.0 cents but Kuala said it believes the "real technical innovation" is in relation to nanopayments, in some cases being less than 1.0 cent.

"SatoshiPay will provide a direct alternative to pay-walls, currently adopted by some media companies, and require the user to pay for consumption on a per article, per song or per download basis; or for content to be consumed and paid for on an incremental basis," said Kuala.

SatoshiPay is currently preparing for a trial launch of its nanopayment technology in the fourth quarter of 2015 followed by a full release of its software in the first half of 2016.

For the five months ended August 31, 2015 SatoshiPay made a loss of EUR36,626.

"Media companies have long been battling to maintain valuations and revenue models based on advertising revenue, a problem exacerbated by the increasing use of mobile phones. The board of Kuala believes that online content will move to a consumption model, with consumers paying to view, read, watch or listen to content, or play games, or for payments to be processed autonomously to and from machines," said Co-Chairman Jim Mellon.

"We believe SatoshiPay is at the forefront of this change, and the disruptive payment software it has developed has enormous potential. We are pleased to invest in and work with Meinhard Benn, the SatoshiPay founder, and all of the SatoshiPay technical team, and we look forward to the results of the current trial being known and launch of the product early next year," he added.

Kuala shares were trading up 1.0% to 5.30 pence per share on Monday morning.

By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance

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