Secure BTC vault Xapo has announced they’ve raised $20 million from Greylock Partners and Index Ventures, bringing their total investment capital to $40 million. Other investors include Emergence Capital Partners, Max Levchin, Yuri Milner, and Jerry Yang.

Reid Hoffman and Mike Volpi will join Xapo’s board as observers. The company plans to use the funds to make bitcoin more accessible to the general user and to further protect BTC in “cold storage” on their servers.

Xapo is a “bank” for bitcoin which will allow small BTC owners to use a branded debit card to withdraw bitcoin on the fly and institutional investors to put their bitcoin into a physically secure vault to prevent theft.

“Let us keep in mind that it’s important not to be short-sighted when examining bitcoin. Today, bitcoin is used primarily as a store of value. Soon, it will be a payment mechanism. In the near future it will be a unit of account. We are thankful to be a part of the journey and the ecosystem,” wrote Wences Casares, founder and CEO.

The company has also clarified the timeframe for their upcoming debit card launch. Cards will be shipped to early customers mid-July “and will continue to ship throughout the coming months,” according to a Xapo spokesperson Dani Metz.

“We have signed deals with financial institutions in the U.S and Europe who will be issuing the cards. We aren’t disclosing those names at this time,” she said.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/08/bitcoin-vault-xapo-raises-20-million-from-greylock-index-and-announces-btc-debit-cards-are-shipping-this-month/