CoinFund, Coinbase Back Trace in $32M Stablecoin Funding

Trace Finance Secures $32 Million Series A to Bridge Digital and Traditional Finance

Trace Finance, a financial infrastructure company facilitating stablecoin settlements between banks in Brazil and the United States, announced Wednesday it has raised $32 million in a Series A funding round. The round was led by CoinFund and included investments from Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, Jump Capital, and other crypto-focused investors.

This funding comes at a pivotal moment as Brazilian regulators begin to classify cross-border cryptocurrency transfers as foreign-exchange operations. This regulatory shift is prompting institutional capital to move away from unregulated crypto platforms and toward licensed, bank-grade intermediaries—precisely the market niche Trace Finance has cultivated.

The New York-based company reports having processed over $10 billion in cross-border transaction volume. It has established itself as a key settlement partner for several major global payment firms operating in Latin America, including the Uruguay-based payments company dLocal.

Bernardo Brites, co-founder and CEO of Trace, emphasized the company’s strategy of integrating stablecoins with traditional banking compliance, rather than positioning digital currency as a replacement for existing regulated financial systems.

“Stablecoins alone do not solve cross-border payments. Stablecoins plus regulated local bank infrastructure does,” Brites stated. “This round allows us to enhance the banking, payments, and compliance infrastructure that global fintechs, exchanges, international banks, and enterprises depend on to connect digital settlement with trusted local financial systems.”

The new capital will support Trace Finance’s expansion beyond its initial U.S.-Brazil corridor into other Latin American markets, as well as the United States and the Asia-Pacific region.

The funding round also saw participation from strategic investors such as Chainlink Labs and prominent individual backers with significant ties to the crypto industry, including Circle co-founder Sean Neville and Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko. Ricardo Villela Marino, vice chairman of Itaú Unibanco, Latin America’s largest bank, also participated.

“The next era of global money movement will be dominated by companies that can bridge on-chain settlement with trusted local banking systems,” said Einar Braathen, Partner at CoinFund. “Brazil represents one of the world’s largest and most operationally complex payment environments, and Trace has successfully built the regulated infrastructure that global blue-chip businesses are leveraging for scale, while simultaneously reducing time and costs compared to legacy alternatives.”

Trace Finance’s previous funding, a seed round in 2022, was led by HOF Capital. The company indicated it is currently developing additional settlement products aimed at strengthening its banking relationships across Brazil and the wider region.