Augustus, a startup building a federally chartered clearing bank for fintechs and financial institutions, said it raised $180 million to expand its dollar payment infrastructure as stablecoins reshape global finance.
The fundraising valued the company at $1 billion, with Tiger Global leading the round and investors such as Hummingbird, QED and the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle and Deel participating, the company said in a Tuesday press release.
The investment comes as banks, fintechs and crypto firms are racing to modernize the infrastructure behind cross-border payments. While much of the attention has centered on stablecoin issuers, Augustus is targeting a less visible but crucial part of the financial system: correspondent banking.
“We think distribution breaks at the clearing bank layer,” CEO Ferdinand Dabitz told CoinDesk in an interview. Legacy clearing systems are “slow, unavailable, take two days to settle and close on the weekends,” he argued.
Taking on correspondent banking
The firm is building what Dabitz described as an “AI-native” clearing bank designed around stablecoins, programmable money and always-on settlement.
Augustus doesn’t plan to issue its own stablecoin, Dabitz said. Instead, it wants to provide the banking infrastructure that lets financial institutions move money across traditional payment systems and blockchain networks.
The company already provides euro clearing through its regulated entity in Finland and says it processes billions of euros annually. Its customers are “global financial institutions,” Dabitz said, including “international fintechs, international banks, international crypto companies” such as crypto exchange Kraken.
The firm obtained conditional approval for a U.S. national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in May. Once Augustus receives final OCC approval, it plans to add direct access to U.S. dollar clearing.
“We think in 10 years from now all clearing banks will offer stablecoin rails like they offer Fedwire,” Dabitz said.
The company also sees stablecoins improving treasury management by enabling institutions to move liquidity instantly across markets rather than holding idle balances in correspondent accounts. Augustus estimates trillions of dollars remain locked across those accounts today.
Building for an always-on financial system
Augustus says its banking platform was built from scratch instead of on legacy banking software, allowing it to support programmable payments and round-the-clock settlement.
Dabitz argued the approach puts the company in a better position to manage new risks created by artificial intelligence.
He also sees stablecoins being critical for AI-driven finance. “If AI agents should interact with the bank in a meaningful way, they will need programmable money,” he said.