The firm did not disclose funding amounts oddly but is sharing that their first round is co-led by a16z Crypto and Paradigm with participation from Thrive Capital, Coatue, Felix Capital, Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners and Zeev Ventures. Bitcoin’s lightning network allows for cheaper and faster transactions than the base level network allows, making it a more ideal platform to leverage for payments and decentralized apps.
Split Payments was introduced alongside the news that Messenger is launching new voice message recording controls so users can pause, preview, delete or continue recording a voice message before sending it. The company said that its feature offering end-to-end encrypted group chats and calls in Messenger is now fully rolled out. The launch of Split Payments comes as Messenger added Venmo-like QR codes for person-to-person payments last summer. Messenger also added another security feature that will alert users if someone snaps a photo from Messenger’s disappearing messages.