Bitcoin exchange and payments service provider Paymium has raised a seed round of €1 million ($1.12 million) that included Newfund, Kima Ventures, Galitt and a number of unnamed individuals.

Founded in 2011, Paymium offers a Bitcoin exchange which they claim offers a secure, reliable, high-performance trading platform that is in compliance with European regulations.

On top of the traditional buying and selling of Bitcoin, the company also offers payment services that allow merchants to accept payments in Bitcoin with instant conversion to Euros; some of its clients include popular European online retailer Showroomprive and point-of-sale solution provider Ingenico.

“We intend to increase our trade volume by five by the end of 2016,” Paymium President and Co-founder Pierre Noizat said in a statement. “Interest of Blockchain technology, on which Bitcoin grows, is now widely recognized by the banking sector. This paves the way to new applications in the field of digital trust and payments.”

Along with the new funding the company also announced two new products: a new advanced Bitcoin trading interface that is said to deliver to “expert users” rapid access to all the market information they need including “elegant graphics updated in real time” as well as advanced trading capabilities, and a new service that allows customers to send money by mail in euros or Bitcoins, without fees, throughout Europe.

E’trange

Perhaps being a French company means there are cultural differences to those elsewhere, but whatever the reason, founder Noizat took to Coindesk to gripe about the round not being big enough, adding “in the U.S., Bitcoin awareness and venture capital funds are much more available. I think there is a tendency in the press to overestimate Bitcoin awareness outside English speaking countries. There’s a lot to be done in Europe.”

Taking money then bitching about it not being big enough because “Europe” is nearly as strange as a 4-year-old company raising a seed round; sure, he’s probably right that there’s better recognition of Bitcoin in English speaking countries, but you don’t moan about $1 million not being enough, it’s at the very least disrespectful to the people giving you the money.

It’s unknown if Paymium has raised funds before or had been bootstrapped to this point.

The company said it would use the funding to “accelerate its growth in Europe and to provide new, innovative functionalities.”

Image credit: screenshot/ Paymium.