Latest news with #CoinFund

Finextra
4 days ago
- Business
- Finextra
Dakota raises $12.5m to bring banking into the internet age
Dakota Funding has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding to help it realise its goal of changing how banks work in the Internet Age. Dakota wants to help banks adapt to digital demands faster by giving them tools that are easy to use and can grow with their needs. 1 This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author. This Dakota Series A Funding round shows that strong investor confidence in fintech solutions that put simplicity, speed, and user experience first. Dakota, the crypto-integrated business banking platform, today announced it has raised $12.5 million in a Series A funding round led by CoinFund, with participation from 6th Man Ventures (6MV) and Triton Ventures. The new capital will accelerate Dakota's mission to build the world's first globally accessible business bank account, combining the speed and transparency of stablecoins with the safety of U.S. Treasuries to enable modern, borderless finance. Founded by veterans from Coinbase, Square, and Airbnb, Dakota is reimagining how businesses move and store money across borders. Its platform enables companies to hold and transfer funds across USD or stablecoins while accessing familiar payment rails, such as ACH, Fedwire, SWIFT, and SEPA. Behind the scenes, Dakota leverages blockchain technology to enable near-instant, verifiable transfers, keeping customer funds fully reserved and under the client's control. Since launching in 2023, Dakota has already attracted over 500 business customers – from tech startups to international nonprofits – processing billions of dollars in annualized transaction volume. By using stablecoins as settlement rails and backing deposits 1:1 with U.S. Treasuries, Dakota eliminates the counterparty and liquidity risks that have plagued traditional banks, especially in the wake of recent crises like the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. 'Companies are increasingly default global and they're being hamstrung by slow wire transfers, limited banking access, and the reality that once money goes into a bank, customers lose control,' said Ryan Bozarth, CEO and co-founder of Dakota. 'Our goal with Dakota is to bring banking into the internet age — giving businesses the ability to move money as instantly and freely as information travels, without sacrificing security or compliance.' The timing couldn't be better. In the U.S., Congress is making meaningful progress on stablecoin legislation, with bipartisan support coalescing around frameworks like the GENIUS Act, signaling long-awaited regulatory clarity for dollar-backed digital assets. Globally, jurisdictions from the EU to Hong Kong are following suit, accelerating the shift toward compliant, mainstream adoption. Major incumbents are taking notice. Payments giant Stripe recently acquired stablecoin startup Privy and Bridge, while PayPal has launched its own stablecoin to keep pace with evolving market demands. These moves underscore how stablecoins are becoming an integral part of modern payments, offering businesses 24/7, borderless money movement at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. 'We believe stablecoins can revolutionize business banking,' said Alex Felix, CIO of CoinFund. 'Dakota is unlocking that potential by combining the familiarity of a bank account with the power of crypto rails. They're not asking mainstream businesses to change how they operate — they're upgrading the engine under the hood.' With the Series A money in hand, Dakota is expanding its product suite and geographic reach. The startup recently rolled out corporate cards, allowing clients to spend their funds via virtual cards while setting custom spend controls for their teams. It also added support for the international SWIFT and SEPA payment networks, on top of its existing U.S. ACH and wire capabilities, aiming to make sending money abroad as simple as a domestic transfer. Dakota is broadening its onboarding to customers across 100+ jurisdictions, including in the UK, EU (under MiCA regulations), Singapore, and Latin America. 'Business today is borderless, and dollars are a universal language,' notes Bozarth. 'We want to give entrepreneurs from Bogotá to Bangalore the same access to U.S. dollar banking that a startup in San Francisco would have.' From a user perspective, Dakota feels like a typical fintech app; the blockchain complexity stays under the hood. Clients can send or receive payments via regular bank accounts without handling crypto directly, as Dakota seamlessly converts funds to and from stablecoins behind the scenes. Dakota is betting on a comprehensive approach, blending global payment rails, multi-currency treasury management, and globally available corporate cards, will set it apart. The founding team's pedigree lends it credibility in both camps: Bozarth and his colleagues built security systems that safeguarded over $100 billion in digital assets, and also helped scale consumer platforms to millions of users. That mix of experience may prove valuable as they navigate the complex intersection of banking and blockchain. Dakota's leadership is focusing on execution: growing its customer base, securing more banking partnerships, and continuing to invest in compliance and regulatory efforts. The company is betting that in a few years, startups will routinely hold dollars on-chain and send payments worldwide in seconds, as easily as sending an email. If that vision pans out, Dakota could emerge as one of the pioneers of stablecoin-powered banking. And thanks to its new funding, it has a running start in that race. Businesses can get started today at and experience modern banking built for the internet age. With Dakota Funding now secured, the company is set to transform traditional banking infrastructure through digital-first innovation backed by its $12.5M Series A round.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Crypto Banking Startup Dakota Raises $12.5M for Global Stablecoin Push
Dakota, a crypto-integrated banking platform for businesses, has raised $12.5 million in a Series A round to expand its borderless banking services, the firm said on Tuesday. The investment was led by CoinFund, with participation from 6th Man Ventures and Triton Ventures. The announcement comes at a time when stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies tied to an external asset, predominantly to the U.S. dollar, are increasingly becoming part of traditional finance plumbing and a tool for cheaper, faster cross-border payments. Stablecoin regulation is also advancing in the U.S., with the Senate already having passed the GENIUS Act and the House aiming to vote on the proposal on Thursday. "We believe stablecoins can revolutionize business banking," Alex Felix, CIO of CoinFund, said in a statement. "Dakota is unlocking that potential by combining the familiarity of a bank account with the power of crypto rails." The startup, founded by alumni of Coinbase, Square, and Airbnb, lets businesses hold and move funds in U.S. dollars or stablecoins while using traditional payment networks like ACH, SWIFT and SEPA. Businesses can send or receive payments via regular bank accounts on the platform without touching crypto directly. Behind the scenes, it uses blockchain to settle transfers nearly instantly, offering an alternative to conventional banking. The firm keeps customer deposits fully reserved and backed 1:1 by short-term U.S. Treasuries, aiming to eliminate liquidity and counterparty risks. With the funding, the firm is now expanding its services to over 100 countries, including the UK, European Union, Singapore and parts of Latin America. "Business today is borderless, and dollars are a universal language," said Dakota CEO Ryan Bozarth. "We want to give entrepreneurs from Bogotá to Bangalore the same access to U.S. dollar banking that a startup in San Francisco would have."Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Exclusive: Former Coinbase exec raises $12.5 million for Dakota, a stablecoin-powered neobank
Crypto and banking are drawing ever closer. Big banks like JPMorgan and Citi are exploring digital asset integrations, and big crypto companies like Circle and Ripple are applying for bank charters. Dakota, a neobank cofounded by a former Coinbase executive, aims to combine both corners of finance—and investors are betting it'll succeed. On Tuesday, the startup announced that it had raised $12.5 million in a Series A led by the crypto venture firm CoinFund. Other participants included 6th Man Ventures, Digital Currency Group, and Triton Ventures. (Triton is the venture arm of the crypto exchange Kraken). The raise was purely for equity, said Ryan Bozarth, cofounder and CEO of Dakota. He declined to specify his startup's valuation. 'Dakota [was] one of the first companies I had seen in the Web3 payment space that had a significant share of non-crypto customers,' Alex Felix, chief investment officer at CoinFund, told Fortune. The injection of capital into Dakota, which uses stablecoins to move money between itself and its customers, is the latest bet from VCs on a company involved in one of the buzziest sectors of crypto. Stablecoins are tokens pegged to underlying assets like the U.S. dollar, and proponents claim they can speed up cross-border payments and reduce transaction fees. While stablecoins are more than a decade old, the asset class has taken center stage this past year after interest from large fintechs and regulatory progress on Capitol Hill. In February, Stripe acquired the stablecoin startup Bridge for $1.1 billion. And, in June, the Senate passed the GENIUS Act, a bill that aims to regulate the tokens. Bozarth is a veteran of Big Tech. He's worked at Sony, Square, and Airbnb. He's also a former Coinbase executive who managed the U.S. crypto exchange's custody arm, or portion of the business that holds large amounts of crypto on behalf of corporate clients. In 2022, Bozarth left Coinbase to found Dakota. Just like the Dakotas, which were once on the frontier of the U.S.'s territorial acquisitions westward, his startup is on the frontier of what he calls 'pioneering technology.' His neobank functions much like any other bank. It has checking accounts and provides users, mainly businesses, yield on the money they've deposited. But instead of relying on decades-old financial technology, it uses stablecoins to move money between it and its many banking partners. (Dakota does not have its own bank charter but is regulated in the U.S. and Europe as a money services business, said Bozarth.) Over the past year, it's processed about $1.6 billion in transaction volume and is on pace to record $4 billion by December, Bozarth said. Dakota has more than 500 businesses using its platform, the majority of which are outside the U.S., he added. 'For a lot of folks outside of the U.S., access to a kind of U.S.-style bank account, or U.S. dollar-denominated account, is an incredibly valuable feature in itself,' said Bozarth. This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data


Crypto Insight
6 days ago
- Business
- Crypto Insight
Real-world asset tokens are the new ETFs — CoinFund president
Real-world asset (RWA) tokens can democratize access to investments previously inaccessible to retail traders, similar to how exchange-traded funds (ETFs) expanded retail access to financial instruments when they debuted in 1993, according to Christopher Perkins, president and managing partner of investment firm CoinFund. 'I believe tokens are the new ETFs,' Perkins told Cointelegraph in an interview. The executive said tokenized RWAs, which trade 24/7 on globally accessible markets, reduce the information asymmetry that has typically kept retail investors out of private placements under existing accreditation laws. He added: 'Ordinary people cannot access private markets. They're private by their nature. And if you look in the US today, about 81% of companies — this is a BlackRock stat — with $100 million in revenue are private. Essentially, that leaves ordinary people, normal people, very little access to what are the most exciting, the most innovative companies,' he continued. Tokenized RWAs offer a compelling use case for blockchain technology that can increase capital velocity, enable equity financing through asset fractionalization, create new kinds of collateral for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, overhaul current capital formation structures, and democratize investor access to global capital markets. Public investment opportunities in TradFi drying up 'Our public markets are completely broken right now. The system is not working as it was designed. The number of public companies is decreasing materially,' Perkins told Cointelegraph. The number of public companies has fallen by about 50% since the 1990s, according to the executive. 'We are raising less money in public markets, which makes zero sense,' he added. Brokerage platform Robinhood recently debuted tokenized stock trading for European customers. As part of the push into tokenized equities, the platform announced it would distribute a small number of OpenAI and SpaceX 'private equity' tokens to clients. The tokens provide retail investors with price exposure to the underlying private companies but no stake in the actual businesses or voting rights. OpenAI was quick to warn any prospective tokenholders that the tokens do not represent a stake in the AI firm and that the company did not approve the tokens. Despite this, private companies continue to express interest in being listed on the tokenized platform, according to Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev. Source:
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Veda Raises $18M to Expand DeFi Vault Infrastructure Powering Over $3.7B in Assets
Veda, a decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure firm, said it raised $18 million in a round led by CoinFund to support its platform, which enables apps and institutions to offer simplified crypto yield products. The startup's main product is a modular vault framework that lets developers create smart contracts to manage yield strategies without exposing users to the complexity of DeFi, the firm said. The vaults, built on Veda's BoringVault standard, support a range of applications including restaking tokens, yield-bearing stablecoins and on-chain savings accounts. Veda says it has processed deposits from more than 100,000 users across a growing network of DeFi protocols and fintech platforms since its debut in March 2024. These include products such as eBTC and weETHs, Plasma's Vault, and pre-deposit campaigns for Berachain and TAC. Wallets like Binance Wallet and Bybit Web3 are also integrating the infrastructure. Veda already oversees over $3.7 billion in total value locked and plans to partner with a top-five centralized crypto exchange in the near future, it added. The raise also saw participation from Coinbase Ventures, Animoca Ventures, GSR, Mantle EcoFund, BitGo, and Draper Dragon among others. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data