Trace Finance raises $32M Series A, valuation grows 10x from seed
A fintech company most people outside Latin America have never heard of just pulled off something that gets attention in any market: a 10x valuation jump between its seed and Series A rounds.
Trace Finance, a São Paulo-based infrastructure provider specializing in cross-border payments and stablecoin on/off-ramps, closed a $32 million Series A led by CoinFund. The round also attracted Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, Jump Capital, Paxos, Chainlink Labs, and Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko as an angel investor.
From $4.3M seed to a tenfold jump
The company raised $4.3 million in its seed round back in February 2022, with backing from Circle Ventures and HOF Capital. Since then, it has processed somewhere between $5 billion and $10 billion in total payment volume. A company that took in $4.3 million in seed funding went on to move billions in cross-border payments.
The client list helps explain the volume. Trace Finance’s infrastructure serves major players including dLocal, Bitso, and OKX.
Co-founded by CEO Bernardo Brites and Rafael Luz, both of whom have backgrounds in major crypto and fintech firms, the company was established around 2020-2021 with a fairly specific thesis: Latin American fintechs and startups were bleeding money on cross-border banking inefficiencies, high FX costs, and regulatory compliance headaches. Trace Finance built APIs to fix that.
What Trace Finance actually does
Think of Trace Finance as the translation layer between old-world banking and stablecoin-powered payments. The company provides unified APIs that handle payments, foreign exchange, multi-currency accounts, and fiat-to-stablecoin conversions.
In practice, this means a fintech operating in Brazil can use Trace’s infrastructure to accept payments via PIX, the country’s instant payment system, and convert those funds into stablecoins for cross-border settlement. The point is that clients don’t have to build separate integrations for fiat rails and crypto rails.
The $32 million in fresh capital will go toward expanding these compliant payment infrastructures, deepening integrations with local fiat currencies, and building out treasury solutions for clients who need to manage multi-currency positions.
What this means for investors
The investor roster tells a story on its own. CoinFund leading the round signals institutional crypto capital flowing into infrastructure rather than tokens. Coinbase Ventures and Paxos participating suggests the major stablecoin issuers and exchanges see Trace Finance as a critical distribution partner. Chainlink Labs joining hints at potential oracle integrations for real-time FX data. And Anatoly Yakovenko writing a personal check implies Solana-aligned interest in Latin American payment corridors.
Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.
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