Nuri
It set out to become a bank; a later chief executive said €50M was missing
A Berlin mobile bank account, launched as Bitwala, that paired a German current account held at Solarisbank with a built-in Bitcoin wallet, crypto trading and investment products.
- Capital raised (announced)
- Estimated
Recorded announced backing; this is separate from cash received, customer deposits and money recovered.
- Customers in June 2021
- Estimated
The company's own figure at its 2021 funding extension. Not independently measured.
Funding
| Round | Date | Announced | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 venture round (€4 million) | 2018 | ||
| Series A (€13 million) | 2019 | ||
| Series B first close (€15 million) | 2020 | ||
| Series B extension (€9 million) | 2021 |
Announced is what was said at the time. Cash actually received is rarely disclosed and is not assumed to match.
People
| Name | Role | Period | Now | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan Goslicki | — | COO & Co-Founder, Bitwala (since April 2014) | Oct 2026 | |
| Benjamin Jones | — | Herita Technologies | Oct 2026 | |
| Jörg von Minckwitz | — | Not established | Oct 2026 | |
| Kristina Walcker-Mayer | — | Unknown | — | |
| Christoph Iwaniez | — | Unknown | — |
Timeline
2015
Started by Jan Goslicki, Benjamin Jones and Jörg von Minckwitz as a service for spending and sending Bitcoin.
25 September 2018
The company described plans for a blockchain bank account and said 30,000 people were on the waiting list.
November 2018
The account was hosted by Solarisbank.
31 July 2019
The report put the team at more than 40 people.
30 November 2020
The company reported 150,000 customers in 32 countries.
May 2021
Repositioned as a broader neobank.
29 June 2021
The company reported more than 100 staff.
June 2022
The chief executive said the company was shifting toward earlier profitability.
9 August 2022
The company said accounts, cards and crypto wallets would keep working during the proceedings.
18 October 2022
Trading was to end on 30 November 2022.
18 December 2022
The October closure report told customers to withdraw by this date. A deadline is not proof that all customers withdrew or that every distribution was completed.
How it ended
Ran out of money
Nuri filed for insolvency at a Berlin court, citing a lasting strain on liquidity from the cooling of capital markets and the crypto downturn, including the insolvency of Celsius, whose withdrawal freeze had locked customers' Bitcoin interest accounts. After three months of preliminary proceedings it said it had found neither new investors nor a buyer, and asked customers to withdraw their money by 18 December 2022 so the business could be wound up and liquidated. Customer accounts and wallets were held with Solarisbank and its custody arm, and the company said they were unaffected.
What happened next
- Aftermath8 November 2023
A team led by chief executive Dennis Daiber, with co-founder Jan Goslicki, relaunched Bitwala for buying and selling Bitcoin and Ether on infrastructure from Striga, an Estonian subsidiary of Lastbit, and said it was dropping the ambition to become a bank.
Still alive
Open spot
Nuri is gone. Is your crypto card still running?
Spotlight your project here.
Sources
19 sources behind this page.
- 1Crypto Payments Startup Bitwala Raises €4 Million in New Funding · CoinDesk · Sep 2018
- 2Crypto banking app Bitwala relaunches via new partnership with Striga · Cointelegraph · Nov 2023
- 3Berlin-based Crypto-focused Neobank Nuri To Shut Down Business Operations · Crowdfund Insider · Oct 2022
- 4Berlin Bitcoin Neobank Nuri Shutters Business, Warns Clients to Withdraw Funds · Decrypt · Oct 2022
- 5German Crypto Bank Nuri Files for Insolvency, Says 'All Funds Are Safe' · Decrypt · Aug 2022
- 6Berlin-based cryptocurrency bank Bitwala raises €13 million Series A · EU-Startups
- 7ECB reference exchange rate, US dollar/Euro, 25 September 2018 · European Central Bank · Sep 2018
- 8ECB reference exchange rate, US dollar/Euro, 29 June 2021 · European Central Bank · Jun 2021
- 9ECB reference exchange rate, US dollar/Euro, 30 November 2020 · European Central Bank · Nov 2020
- 10ECB reference exchange rate, US dollar/Euro, 31 July 2019 · European Central Bank · Jul 2019
Show 9 moreShow fewer
- 11Bitwala Banks €15 Million in an Earlybird-Led Funding Round · Finance Magnates · Nov 2020
- 12Nuri (Previously Bitwala) Is Closing Down · Finance Magnates
- 13Bitwala bags €4m to support launch of banking app later in the year · FinTech Global · Sep 2018
- 14LinkedIn profile of Jan Goslicki · LinkedIn (self-published profile, viewed by a person) · user-editable
- 15LinkedIn profile: Benjamin Jones - Herita Technologies | LinkedIn · LinkedIn, as shown in Brave Search API results (self-published profile) · user-editable
- 16PXR advises Nuri on €24 million Series B financing · PXR (the company's law firm) · Jun 2021
- 17Nuri files for bankruptcy · Startbase
- 18German cryptocurrency startup Bitwala raises €13 million in Series A funding · Tech.eu · Jul 2019
- 19Nuri (company) · Wikipedia · user-editable
Every figure above is clickable and opens the sources behind it. Copies were stored when each source was read, so a citation still resolves after the page it came from is gone.