19 January 2016
Vela Technologies plc
("Vela" or the "Company")
Update on investment in BTL Group Ltd.
The Board of Vela (AIM: VELA), the investing company focused on early-stage and pre-IPO disruptive technology investments, would like to update shareholders on progress at BTL Group Ltd. ("BTL"), a technology company based in Vancouver, Canada, focused on developing blockchain technologies to disrupt and transform existing industries. BTL announced on 18 January 2016 the launch of its blockchain remittance platform (Interbit) at the BC Tech Summit. Extracts from the BTL announcement are copied below.
Vela holds a c. 5% equity interest in the fully diluted issued share capital of BTL, which is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange.
'BTL GROUP LTD. - (TSX VENTURE: BTL) ("BTL" or the "Corporation") is pleased to announce that it has been invited to showcase its blockchain technology at the BC Tech Summit, January 18th & 19th, 2016 in Vancouver, British Columbia. At the Summit, BTL will be launching Interbit, its remittance platform, with a live demo showing real-time remittances and displaying the low transaction costs of those remittances. The live Interbit demo will demonstrate the ability of this platform to significantly reduce the cost of remitting funds from Canada to the Philippines and Mexico. In addition, BTL has accepted invitations to meet during the event with a number of companies seeking opportunities to innovate using blockchain technology. BTL seeks to build on its accomplishments by developing strategic business relationships and a client base for its innovative blockchain technologies.
"Now that core development of the Interbit platform is completed, BTL will be working on the development of strategic business relationships to embed this platform into broad based remittance products, while expanding the number of countries to which customers will be able to remit money," said Guy Halford-Thompson, CEO of BTL. "Strategically leveraging blockchain technology into our Interbit platform should reduce the cost of remittances by over 80%."
BTL has also started development on its second product offering, BTL Digital Asset Management ("DAM"), an immutable data store built on blockchain technology. By leveraging blockchain technology, DAM seeks to provide enterprise level customers secure data manipulation platforms that can be applied to numerous industries. DAM will have many applications, including to auditing, data security, biometric authentication and settlement.
With the completion of core development on Interbit and its listing on the TSX Venture Exchange, BTL has achieved the material milestones that it set out for 2015. In 2016, BTL will continue to utilize blockchain technology to build innovative real world applications that will aim to solidify its role as a leader in the continually growing and evolving blockchain sector.
About BTL
BTL is a technology company whose current business is focused on developing blockchain technologies to disrupt and transform existing industries. Technology is developed in-house and through BTL's incubator and accelerator programs, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. BTL's first technology platform is a remittance business called Interbit with a focus on leveraging blockchain technology to create rapid and cost effective "cash-in cash-out" settlement solutions from Canada and the United Kingdom to target countries.'
The announcement by BTL can also be found at the following link:
http://web.tmxmoney.com/article.php?newsid=81858757&qm_symbol=BTL
Antony Laiker, Executive Director of Vela, made the following statement:
"As our most recent investment, we are delighted to be able to announce that BTL has launched its first blockchain product. The benefits in terms of both speed of transfer of funds and significantly lower cost of making the remittance are considerable. Guy and his team have delivered this impressive product on time and we look forward to further product news in due course."
For further information please contact:
Vela Technologies plc |
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Brent Fitzpatrick, Non-Executive Chairman Antony Laiker, Director |
Tel: +44 (0) 7802 262 443 |
Allenby Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser) |
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Nick Athanas/Katrina Perez/James Reeve Vicarage Capital Limited (Broker) Rupert Williams/Jeremy Woodgate |
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3328 5656 Tel: +44 (0) 20 3651 2910 |
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