Augustus Secures $180M for Global Dollar Bank

Augustus Secures $180 Million in Series B Funding, Valued at $1 Billion

Augustus, a startup developing a federally chartered clearing bank focused on stablecoins and programmable money, announced Tuesday it has raised $180 million in a Series B funding round, valuing the company at $1 billion.

The funding round was spearheaded by Tiger Global, with contributions from Hummingbird, QED, and notable figures including the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle, and Deel. The investment also saw backing from a range of fintech and crypto industry leaders, such as Circle co-founder Sean Neville, former Coinbase Chief Technology Officer Balaji Srinivasan, and Rain’s Farooq Malik. Augustus has now raised a total of $210 million to date.

The company is targeting the correspondent banking sector, the essential infrastructure that facilitates cross-border money transfers between financial institutions. Instead of issuing its own stablecoin, Augustus is building the underlying technology that will enable banks and fintech companies to conduct transactions across both traditional financial networks and blockchain platforms.

Augustus’ API-first platform supports operating and FBO (For Benefit Of) accounts, with settlements processed via SWIFT, ACH, SEPA, and stablecoins. The system operates on a proprietary core banking system named Marble, which the firm claims enhances settlement speed and offers 24/7 availability through the deployment of artificial intelligence in its back-office operations.

The significance of this funding for financial markets lies in its focus on stablecoins. These digital tokens are designed to maintain a stable value, typically pegged one-to-one with the U.S. dollar, allowing market participants to enter and exit trades without direct access to dollars.

Dollar-pegged stablecoins have emerged as a multibillion-dollar settlement layer, expanding the reach of the U.S. dollar and presenting a challenge to the slow, weekday-dependent correspondent banking system that currently underpins international payments. By integrating stablecoin rails directly into a chartered bank, Augustus is positioning this emerging crypto infrastructure as an upgrade for mainstream financial institutions, rather than merely an alternative.

This financing follows Augustus’ conditional approval in May for a U.S. national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The company stated it is the eighth institution to receive conditional approval since 2010. The startup already lists cryptocurrency exchange Kraken as a client.

“We founded Augustus with a straightforward premise: the Dollar is the world’s most powerful product, but its distribution is fundamentally flawed,” said Ferdinand Dabitz, CEO and co-founder. “This funding allows us to advance our mission of providing high-quality dollar access to international fintechs and banks. It’s time to globalize dollar access.”

Augustus has framed its initiative partly as a geopolitical strategy, citing China’s digital yuan and Russia’s proposed BRICS Pay as potential challenges to Western currency dominance. The company plans to utilize the capital to expand its operations in Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, regions where access to dollars is currently limited.