CoinFund, Coinbase Back Stablecoin Payments Startup Trace Finance in $32 Million Raise - Decrypt

CoinFund, Coinbase Back Stablecoin Payments Startup Trace Finance in $32 Million Raise

Trace Finance, a financial infrastructure company that links banks in Brazil and the United States to stablecoin settlement networks, said Wednesday that it has raised $32 million in a Series A funding round led by CoinFund, with backing from Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, Jump Capital and several other crypto-focused investors.

The raise comes as Brazilian regulators reclassify cross-border crypto transfers as foreign-exchange operations, a shift that is pushing institutional money away from unregulated crypto platforms and toward licensed, bank-grade intermediaries—the niche Trace has built its business around.

The New York-based company says it has processed more than $10 billion in cross-border transaction volume and has become a primary settlement partner for several major global payment firms operating in Latin America, including the Uruguay-based payments company dLocal.

Bernardo Brites, Trace's co-founder and CEO, said the company's strategy rests on pairing stablecoins with traditional banking compliance rather than treating digital currency as a replacement for regulated rails.

"Stablecoins alone do not solve cross-border payments. Stablecoins plus regulated local bank infrastructure does," said Brites, in a statement. "This round lets us deepen the banking, payments, and compliance infrastructure that global fintechs, exchanges, international banks, and enterprises rely on to bridge digital settlement with trusted local financial systems.”

He said the new funding will help the company expand beyond its initial U.S.-Brazil corridor into other Latin American markets, as well as the United States and Asia-Pacific region.

The round also drew participation from strategic investors including Chainlink Labs and individual backers with deep ties to the crypto industry, among them Circle co-founder Sean Neville and Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, as well as Ricardo Villela Marino, vice chairman of Itaú Unibanco, Latin America's largest bank.

"The next phase of global money movement will be won by companies that can bridge on-chain settlement with trusted local banking systems," said CoinFund Partner Einar Braathen, in a statement. "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."

Trace's previous funding round, a 2022 seed raise, was led by HOF Capital. The company said it is now developing additional settlement products aimed at deepening its banking ties across Brazil and the broader region.

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