SBI writes dtcpay a $25M check because borders still run on fax machines 💸

Stablecoin payments company dtcpay has formally closed a $25 million Series A funding round, drawing a strategic investment from Japanese financial conglomerate SBI Group. SBI Holdings said Friday it participated through two Singapore-based vehicles, SBI Ventures Asset and the SBI-NTU-Kyobo Digital Innovation Fund, without disclosing the size of its contribution or dtcpay's valuation.

The round opened in April with a $10 million tranche led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, a subsidiary of Temasek Holdings' Vertex Holdings. Existing backers Genedant Capital and Kwee Liong Tek also maintained their positions. Dtcpay previously raised $16.5 million in a pre-Series A round in June 2023.

Singapore-headquartered dtcpay provides digital-asset conversion, custody, merchant payment terminals and a Visa-linked card that enables stablecoin spending at more than 150 million merchant locations worldwide. The company holds a Major Payment Institution license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore and an Electronic Money Institution license in Luxembourg, with additional regulatory coverage in the European Economic Area, Hong Kong, Australia, the United States and Canada. Dtcpay shifted to a stablecoin-only payments model in 2024 after phasing out support for cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin.

"We did not raise this round to sustain what we have built," Alice Liu, founder and CEO of dtcpay, said in the statement. "We raised it to fundamentally change how money moves across borders."

Dtcpay said the proceeds will fund a revamped enterprise portal, new consumer-facing app features and expansion of its merchant network, while declining to detail the allocation of capital. SBI framed the investment as a step in building a regulated digital-asset corridor linking Japanese capital with Southeast Asian commercial activity, extending a digital-asset push that includes its acquisition of Singapore's Coinhako, an expanded stake in Ripple to distribute the RLUSD stablecoin and participation as a founding validator on Circle's Arc network.