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Stablecoin fintech firm Kast raises $80m series A
Kast, a startup building a stablecoin-powered cross-border payments platform, announced on March 9, 2026 that it raised US$80 million in a series A round co-led by Qed Investors and Left Lane Capital.
Peak XV Partners HSG and Dst Global Partners also participated in the funding round.
Kast said it will use the funds to expand products, invest in licensing and compliance, grow its team, as well as expand across North America, Latin America, and the Middle East.
The company said it serves more than one million users and processes close to US$5 billion in annualized transaction volume.
It also said revenue doubled since the end of September 2025.
🔗 Source: Kast
🧠 Food for thought
Implications, context, and why it matters.
Kast is a stablecoin-powered fintech platform with cards and USD deposit features
- Kast offers a Visa card that lets users spend stablecoins such as USD Coin (USDC) at more than 100 million merchants and ATMs worldwide 1.
- Users can deposit and send US dollars through a virtual account using Fedwire (the US Federal Reserve’s real-time gross settlement system) and Automated Clearing House (ACH) bank transfers, with background conversion between government-issued currency (fiat) and stablecoins 2.
- Kast’s “Earn Vaults” ties into decentralized finance (DeFi) risk manager Gauntlet (a firm that helps manage risk in crypto protocols) and offers 5% to 9% annual percentage yield (APY) on USDC and Tether (USDT), so balances can keep earning until spending through the Kast Card 3.
New US stablecoin law could reduce reliance on state money transmitter licensing for certain models
- The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, created a US framework for payment stablecoins and allowed payment stablecoin issuers 4.
- Some nonbanks can qualify as “permitted payment stablecoin issuers” under federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) oversight or qualifying state supervision. This structure could let stablecoin-based platforms run a range of payment services under one oversight approach 4.
- This status appears to override state money transmitter licensing for permitted issuers, while leaving state consumer protection laws in place 5.
- A Federal Reserve note estimates that each $100 billion of net deposit drain could cut bank lending by about $60 billion to $126 billion, based on an empirical pass-through range 6.
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