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A Dallas-based crypto bank, Augustus, has reached unicorn status with a $1 billion valuation after raising $180 million in Series B funding. Tiger Global led the round, with participation from Hummingbird, QED, and fintech leaders including former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan. The startup, backed by Palantir founder Peter Thiel, received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in May. Augustus positions itself as a clearing bank providing dollar and euro access to international fintechs and banks, counting $20 billion crypto exchange Kraken among its customers. Founded in 2022 by CEO Ferdinand Dabitz and co-founders Joshua Becker, Simon Wimmer, and Peter Lieck, Augustus has raised $210 million to date. The company employs around 50 people and has signed a five-year lease in Uptown Dallas.

Augustus raises $180 million to build clearing bank for stablecoins. By PYMNTS | July 21, 2026 Augustus, formerly known as Ivy, raised $180 million in a Series B funding round to support its offering that gives financial institutions around the world direct access to dollar accounts and rails through a federally chartered bank. The company will use the new funding to continue serving FinTechs and banks in Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa, it said in a Tuesday (July 21) press release. Augustus' platform supports operating and FBO accounts with named virtual accounts and enables customers to transact with first and third parties via Swift, ACH, SEPA and stablecoins, according to the release. "We started Augustus with a simple thesis: the Dollar is the greatest product in the world but its distribution is fundamentally broken," Augustus CEO and Co-Founder Ferdinand Dabitz said in the release. "This financing lets us execute on our mission to provide high-quality dollar access to international FinTechs and banks. It's time to dollarize the world." QED Investors was among the participants in Augustus' latest funding round. Nigel Morris, managing partner at QED Investors, said in the release that correspondent banking has not been challenged yet by FinTechs and that this has left global FinTechs and banks with a choice of only "slow, low-tech" incumbent correspondent banks or middleware FinTech providers. "Augustus solves this by combining cutting-edge technology with a real bank charter, providing international financial institutions with a modern, direct dollar clearing platform," Morris said. PYMNTS reported May 11 that Ivy rebranded as Augustus on that day and announced that it received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a full-service U.S. national bank. Augustus said at the time in a press release that its goal is to become the first clearing bank "for the AI era," founded on a "stablecoin and AI-native core." "The existing clearing model runs on legacy correspondents that are closed 115 days a year, built for humans, and take two days to settle," the company said. When still known as Ivy, the company raised $20 million in an August 2023 Series A round to expand a global network for open banking payments.

Augustus raises $180 million to build a stablecoin-ready 'Global Dollar Bank' The Tiger Global-led round values the startup at $1 billion as it wires stablecoin rails directly into a federally chartered bank, aiming to modernize the correspondent-banking plumbing behind cross-border payments. Jul 21, 2026 In brief. * Augustus raised $180 million at a $1 billion valuation, led by Tiger Global with backing from the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle, and Deel, plus figures like Balaji Srinivasan. * Rather than issue its own stablecoin, the firm is building a chartered "Global Dollar Bank" that moves money across both traditional rails. * The deal underscores how dollar-pegged stablecoins are becoming mainstream financial infrastructure, backed by Augustus' conditional OCC national bank charter and framed partly as a counter to China's digital yuan and Russia's proposed BRICS Pay. Augustus, a startup building a federally chartered clearing bank designed around stablecoins and programmable money, said Tuesday it raised $180 million in a Series B round that values the company at $1 billion. The round was led by Tiger Global, with participation from Hummingbird, QED, and the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle, and Deel. A roster of fintech and crypto figures also backed the deal, including Circle co-founder Sean Neville, former Coinbase Chief Technology Officer Balaji Srinivasan, and Rain's Farooq Malik. Augustus said it has raised $210 million to date. The company is targeting correspondent banking, the plumbing that lets money move between institutions across borders. Rather than issuing its own stablecoin, Augustus is building infrastructure that lets banks and fintechs transact across both traditional rails and blockchain networks. Its API-first platform supports operating and FBO accounts and settles via Swift, ACH, SEPA and stablecoins, running on a proprietary core banking system called Marble that the firm says enables faster settlement and 24/7 availability by deploying AI across the back office. Stablecoins are central to why the deal matters to financial markets. Stablecoins are tokens designed to hold a steady value, usually pegged one-to-one to U.S. dollars, which allow market participants to enter and exit trades without the need to access dollars directly. Dollar-pegged stablecoins have grown into a multibillion-dollar settlement layer, extending the reach of the U.S. dollar and pressuring the slow, weekday-bound correspondent system that still underpins cross-border payments. By wiring stablecoin rails directly into a chartered bank, Augustus is positioning that emerging crypto infrastructure as a plumbing upgrade for mainstream institutions, rather than a workaround. The financing follows Augustus' conditional approval in May for a U.S. national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which the company said made it the eighth bank to win conditional approval since 2010. The startup already counts crypto exchange Kraken among its customers. "We started Augustus with a simple thesis: the Dollar is the greatest product in the world but its distribution is fundamentally broken," said Ferdinand Dabitz, CEO and co-founder. "This financing lets us execute on our mission to provide high-quality dollar access to international fintechs and banks. It's time to dollarize the world." Augustus framed the effort partly as a geopolitical bet, noting China's digital yuan and Russia's proposed BRICS Pay as challenges to Western currency dominance. It plans to use the capital to expand across Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa, where dollar access remains limited. Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.