Visa, Circle and Ripple back Velocity as stablecoin payments firm hits $200M valuation
Velocity raises another $10 million from Visa, Circle and Ripple
Velocity, a startup that helps companies use stablecoins, has raised another $10 million from investors including Visa, Circle and Ripple. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies tied to fiat money such as the US dollar. The new money brings its early-stage Series A funding round to $48 million.
The investment values the London-based payments infrastructure firm at $200 million post-money, CEO Eric Queathem told CoinDesk.
Velocity builds tools that let payment companies and banks use stablecoins for settlement and treasury work without replacing their existing systems.
Key numbers and investors
- Additional $10 million from Visa Ventures, Circle Ventures, Haun Ventures, Translink Capital, Mirana Ventures and Ripple.
- Series A total now $48 million, following a $38 million round announced in July.
- New valuation of $200 million post-money, according to CEO Eric Queathem.
- Stablecoin circulation has grown beyond $300 billion, according to the report.
- The earlier Series A round was oversubscribed, Queathem said.
What the companies say
Queathem previously worked at Worldpay, which settles more than $2 trillion in annual payments volume. He said consumer payments have improved on the front end, but the back-end layer that moves money between banks, card networks and merchants has not been fixed.
“But no one has fixed the back-end layer,” he said.
Velocity does not see stablecoins as replacing cards, the report said. Rubail Birwadker, Visa's global head of growth products and strategic partnerships, said in a statement that stablecoins are playing an increasingly important role in how value moves across the Visa ecosystem and that Velocity is building infrastructure for stablecoin-powered money movement.
Velocity Chief Growth Officer Matt Larson said the shift may be invisible to consumers. He said users may not all switch to stablecoin wallets; instead, funding and settlement around card networks could increasingly move toward stablecoins.
Why this matters for payments
Once used mainly by crypto traders, stablecoins are increasingly used in payments, cross-border transfers and corporate treasury operations, according to the report. Velocity is targeting the infrastructure behind those transactions.
Queathem expects global businesses will eventually keep some capital onchain — that is, on blockchain-based systems. “I think in five years every global business is going to hold value onchain,” he said. He said even a small shift of corporate money onchain would create a large infrastructure challenge. This is his expectation, not a confirmed forecast.