Bitnet Technologies, which provides a digital commerce platform designed to enable enterprise-scale merchants to accept bitcoin payments, today announced it has closed a $14.5 million Series A funding round led by Highland Capital Partners.

​In addition to Highland, new investors include Rakuten, the largest e-commerce site in Japan and one of the world's largest by sales, according to the company press release. The funding comes as Bitnet launches its platform and builds teams for sales, marketing and customer support, the company said. Bitnet, currently with offices in San Francisco, California, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, also plans to expand its physical presence into continental Europe and Asia. As part of the funding round, Peter Bell, partner at Highland Capital Partners, will join Bitnet's board of directors. 

Founded in January 2014 by John McDonnell (CEO) and Stephen Mc Namara (CTO), Bitnet is comprised of 27 payments industry veterans with extensive technical and executive backgrounds at CyberSource and Visa. Bitnet's engineering, product and business development team helped build and manage the world's largest payment gateway, CyberSource, which was sold to the world's largest payment network, Visa, for $2 billion in 2010.

"John, Stephen and the team they have assembled are the epitome of what we mean when we talk about partnering with innovative entrepreneurs who have the ambition to build disruptive, market-leading companies," Bell said in a statement. "Bitnet is breaking down the barriers of digital currency transactions and has the potential to transform the way we exchange goods and services around the world."