COINQVEST is now Whalestack

You are looking at a blog post that was published when Whalestack was still known as COINQVEST. The content might be referencing our old name.

Blog Press Releases

May 12, 2021

COINQVEST Receives 0.5M USD as Equity-Free Grant through the Stellar Seed Fund

COINQVEST is ecstatic to announce bringing home top prize in the inaugural round of the Stellar Seed Fund. We're humbled by the support of the Stellar community and everyone who voted for us to bring compliant cryptocurrency payment processing to online businesses everywhere.

COINQVEST Receives 0.5M USD as Equity-Free Grant through the Stellar Seed Fund

Tallinn, Estonia - May 12th, 2021 - COINQVEST today announced its selection as the top business in the Stellar Seed Fund №1, where it was awarded first place by a panel of Stellar Development Foundation members and peers in the Stellar ecosystem.

The final round consisted of eight participants, each being awarded an equity-free grant amount proportionate to the number of votes received. The COINQVEST cryptocurrency payment gateway received 835,214 XLM, worth more than 500k USD at the time of writing. In all, 58 fintech businesses and blockchain projects entered the nine-month long competition in August 2020, vying for one of the final spots.

COINQVEST is humbled and privileged for being selected as the top project. It demonstrates a confidence in what we do and shared vision of a future with programmable money with borderless payments. It validates our product and acknowledges our efforts. Consequently, it implies accountability and responsibility to continue providing value to the ecosystem that supports us.

The Seed Fund, apart from being a monetary grant to a fledgling startup like the COINQVEST, bestows innumerable benefits to those able to put themselves under scrutiny and rise to the test.

In fact, it was winning the smaller Stellar Community Fund nearly a year ago that allowed us to acquire our European Union crypto payment processing license. Without the license, we would not have been able to grow and develop our business to the point where we are today.

Co-founder Marcin Olszowy had this to say: “Being peer-critiqued and discussed objectively has been invaluable in shaping and reexamining crucial aspects of our business.”

COINQVEST's other co-founder, Stefan Schneider, adds “The increased attention we’ve gained also means being able to showcase our strengths and real-world functionality as a digital currency/ stable coin payment provider. We truly appreciate having the opportunity to be a part the Seed Fund. I can’t recommend participation enough to those building on Stellar and wanting to take their projects to the next level.”

We would like to thank the Stellar Development Foundation for their hard work in bringing programmable money to reality and creating the Seed Fund. Their mission, to be an equitable financial link connecting the world, has inspired change in an antiquated industry. The Seed Fund thrusts these ideas into the light.

Our team would also like to congratulate the other entries and finalists in this round. We understand the challenges posed to take an idea and develop it into a viable business, and have it picked apart.

To be a part of the Seed Fund and share what we are working on is a reward by itself. Preparing for this funding round urged us to fine-tune and improve our platform for voters to test and critique. It also challenged us to answer questions the community would have about functionality and logistics of our product. The feedback we received is key to our ongoing improvement.

About COINQVEST

COINQVEST is a suite of payment APIs and browser-based invoicing and payment management tools. Processing is secure and automatic, complete with beautifully designed back-end providing analytics, invoicing, and history to serve enterprise business needs.

About Stellar

Stellar is a decentralized, fast, scalable, and uniquely sustainable network for financial products and services. It is both a cross-currency transaction system and a platform for digital asset issuance, designed to connect the world's financial infrastructure. Dozens of financial institutions worldwide issue assets and settle payments on the Stellar network, which has grown to over 5 million accounts.

About the Stellar Seed Fund

The Seed Fund seeks to support early-stage Stellar development of long-term utilities for the ecosystem and viable, for-profit, businesses building products and services for the world. The goal of the Seed Fund is to help innovative first-mover businesses and utilities get started on Stellar.

SDFSeed FundCommunity FundGrant
Randall Wong
Randall Wong Head of Content