London-based Fiat Republic, the specialist Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $7M (approximately €6.4M) in a Seed extension round.
Participants in the round include first-time investments from Kraken Ventures, Fabric Ventures, Arca, Inovo.vc, and Pretiosum Ventures as well as existing investors Speedinvest, Credo Ventures, and Seedcamp.
This investment will allow Fiat Republic to accelerate growth and expansion by strategically hiring new personnel, strengthening banking partnerships, and expanding to new territories.
Besides funding, the company also secured a full electronic money institution (EMI) licence from De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), enabling it to provide regulated financial services across the European Economic Area.
This comes in addition to their established EMI licence in the UK where they have been operational for over a year.
This Dutch licence enables the Fiat Republic platform to provide payment services and issue e-money to EEA crypto platforms, via its purpose-built, developer-friendly API.
Adam Bialy, CEO and co-founder of Fiat Republic, notes “With our newly acquired Dutch EMI licence, Fiat Republic will now operate across the entire European Union directly, providing e-money and payment services. Passporting from the reputable and credible jurisdiction of the Netherlands not only boosts our legitimacy in the traditional finance world, but also highlights our commitment to high compliance standards, security, and close collaboration with regulators. This move, to me, also signals that the Netherlands is open for business ahead of the upcoming MiCA regulation.”
Fiat Republic: Fiat-as-a-Service platform
Led by Adam Bialy, Fiat Republic is a Fiat-as-a-Service platform aggregating local fiat rails for crypto platforms via a single API.
The company enables crypto platforms to easily embed fiat payments into their platform to deliver frictionless pay-ins and pay-outs for their users.
The UK company has built a brand new category, Web2.5, the bridge between Web2 and Web3, which provides the connectivity tissue between banks and crypto platforms needed to accelerate global crypto adoption.
With a strong focus on AML, compliance, and security, Fiat Republic aims to more closely align traditional finance with crypto providers.
What do the investors have to say?
Fabric Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in boldest ideas in Web 3, to create a more fair, productive, and sustainable economy— an Open Economy.
Anil Hansjee, General Partner at Fabric Ventures, adds “We are delighted to be part of Fiat Republic’s journey in revolutionizing the Banking-as-a-Service landscape. Their innovative and regulation-first approach in bridging the worlds of traditional banking and web3 is not only timely but crucial for the evolution of financial services. This investment is a testament to our belief in Fiat Republic’s vision and the potential of their platform to redefine the banking experience for crypto platforms across Europe.”
Founded by Wall Street veterans, Arca is an asset management firm that creates and manages institutional-grade products using crypto and blockchain technology.
Michal Benedykcinski, SVP at Arca, says, “Arca is enthusiastic to back Fiat Republic on its mission to bridge the gap between traditional banking and the rapidly growing financial needs of web3 projects. Our investment in the Fiat Republic represents a deep belief in making compliant industry standards for individual transactions easy to follow by all market participants, whether you are a crypto platform, bank, or regulator.”
