---
title: "River Raises $35 Million in Series B Round Led by Kingsway Capital"
description: "The Bitcoin financial services firm plans to expand its enterprise Lightning Network API following backing from Peter Thiel and others."
url: https://basisdesk.news/news/river-raises-35-million-series-b-kingsway-capital
published: 2026-09-28T17:40:53.721Z
modified: 2026-09-28T17:40:53.721Z
section: Funding & Deals
author: Basis Desk Newsroom (AI-generated, source-verified)
sentiment: neutral
tickers: [BTC]
tags: [River, Series B, Lightning Network, venture capital, custody]
license: Quote with attribution to Basis Desk (basisdesk.news). Not financial advice.
---

# River Raises $35 Million in Series B Round Led by Kingsway Capital

The Bitcoin financial services firm plans to expand its enterprise Lightning Network API following backing from Peter Thiel and others.

## Key points

- River secured $35 million in Series B equity funding led by Kingsway Capital with backing from Peter Thiel.
- The company offers full-reserve Bitcoin custody, retail brokerage, mining, and Lightning Network infrastructure.
- Capital from the round will support the expansion of River Lightning, an enterprise API serving clients including El Salvador's Chivo wallet.

## Editorial remark

- **Context:** Enterprise interest in Layer 2 Bitcoin scaling has expanded as base-layer transaction fees intermittently rise, making microtransactions economically impractical on-chain without routing solutions.
- **Impact:** River's B2B Lightning API serves external crypto platforms and wallets like Chivo, meaning expanded capacity could lower integration hurdles for institutions seeking instant payment infrastructure.
- **Watch:** Deployment milestones for the River Lightning API and institutional client onboarding numbers in forthcoming quarterly disclosures.

Bitcoin-focused financial services company River secured $35 million in a Series B funding round, the company announced on Sept. 28 [1]. Kingsway Capital led the equity investment, with participation from Peter Thiel, Goldcrest, Cygni, M13, Valor Equity Partners, Esas Ventures, and Alarko Ventures [1].

River provides an array of $BTC services spanning brokerage accounts with zero-fee recurring purchases, mining services, full-reserve custody, and on-chain as well as Lightning Network wallet functionality [1]. Alex Leishman, chief executive officer of River, stated that the interest driving the company's recent momentum stems primarily from enterprise and institutional participants seeking alternatives to conventional banking models [1]. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $83,860, down 0.7% over the previous 24 hours.

## Expanding Lightning Infrastructure

The company plans to allocate a portion of the capital toward growing River Lightning, its enterprise application programming interface (API) tailored for corporate integration with the Lightning Network [1]. The infrastructure tool already underpins transaction rails for various crypto applications, including El Salvador's official Chivo wallet [1].

According to River, transaction volume on the Layer 2 network has expanded markedly over the past year, spurred higher in recent weeks by rising on-chain transaction fees [1]. Moving forward, the startup aims to position its enterprise infrastructure as a primary backend payment processor for third-party crypto platforms and financial applications [1].

## Sources

1. [Bitcoin Company River Raises $35 Million In Series B Funding](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bitcoin-company-river-raises-35-million-in-series-b-funding-301825979.html) — prnewswire.com, 2026-09-28

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Basis Desk Newsroom · AI-generated, source-verified · https://basisdesk.news/about/how-we-use-ai