Latitude raised a $35 million Series A led by Oak HC/FT to connect stablecoin settlement to local payment rails, the company said Wednesday. NEA, Coinbase Ventures, Lightspeed Faction and OpenFX also took part.
The money goes into licences and local payout connections, the leg of a stablecoin payment that still runs through banks and domestic schemes. Latitude holds the permissions itself rather than renting them, which is what its customers are buying.
The round follows an $8 million seed earlier this year and brings total funding to $43 million. Latitude was founded by Cyril Mathew, Brian Wrightson and Vivek Morzaria, who previously held roles at Stripe, Coinbase, Meta, Uber and Zero Hash.
“You shouldn’t need to understand stablecoins to use them,” said Cyril Mathew, co-founder and CEO of Latitude. “We built Latitude so a business can move money in and out of any market and have it just work.”
Thirty-Nine Licences
Latitude has 39 money transmission licences, one state registration and five no-action letters, with Latitude Payments Inc. registered with FinCEN as a money services business, according to its site. A SOC 2 Type I audit is complete and Type II is targeted for the fourth quarter.
The site lists live payout markets in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, the Philippines, India and most European countries, with Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, Thailand, Vietnam and several African countries in beta.
Buying The Last Mile
“Latitude has taken on that hard work from the beginning, building the regulatory foundation and local connectivity required to operate at scale,” said Oivind Lorentzen, a partner at Oak HC/FT.
Others are buying their way into the same layer. Circle agreed to acquire Tazapay for $400 million in stock this week, The Defiant reported. Privy launched fiat on-ramps with Stripe in the U.S. and EU in July, The Defiant reported, and Deel took its DLUSD wallet to more than 80 countries in August, The Defiant reported.
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