Trace Finance has raised $32 million in Series A funding in a round led by CoinFund. Other investors participating in the offering were well-known in the crypto sector, including Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, Paxos, HOF Capital, Valor Capital, and Jump Capital.
Smaller investors included Chainlink Labs and SNZ Capital, alongside individuals like Sean Neville, co-founder of Circle; Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs; Bam Azizi, co-founder and CEO of Mesh; and Ricardo Villela Marino, Partner and Vice Chairman of Latin America’s largest bank, Itaú Unibanco.
Trace Finance operates in the stablecoin sector, enabling payments, transfers, and settlement reporting, and has already processed $10 billion in value. As the payment stablecoin business evolves, the company anticipates growing demand from the regulated finance sector.
The company reports that US-Brazil transfers were the “proving ground” for its operations. Trace says that Brazil has classified cross-border digital asset movement as foreign exchange operations, shifting volume away from non-bank providers and toward bank-grade infrastructure, where Trace excels.
Trace shares that it is expanding operations across the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region.
Bernardo Brites, co-founder and CEO of Trace Finance, says that stablecoins alone do not solve the cross-border payments need, but adding regulation-compliant services with the local bank ecosystem does.
Coinfund Partner Einar Braathen believes the winners will be the Fintechs that bridge onchain settlement with compliant local banks.
“Brazil is one of the largest and most operationally complex payment environments in the world, and Trace has built the regulated infrastructure that global blue-chip businesses are using to scale, while saving time and costs compared to legacy alternatives.”
