Latitude Raises $43M to Build Stablecoin-to-Local-Currency Payment Rails Across 50+ Countries

Latitude Closes $43 Million in Funding to Scale Stablecoin-to-Local-Currency Payment Rails

San Francisco-based Latitude has raised a $35 million Series A led by Oak HC/FT, a healthcare and financial-services-focused venture firm, bringing the stablecoin payments startup's total funding to $43 million. The round drew participation from NEA, Coinbase Ventures, Lightspeed Faction, and OpenFX. The Series A follows an $8 million seed round that NEA also led, with Lightspeed Faction, Coinbase, Paxos, and the Solana Foundation participating.

Latitude was co-founded by Cyril Mathew, Vivek Morzaria, and Brian Wrightson, all of whom previously held roles at Stripe, Coinbase, Uber, and Meta. The company says it will deploy the new capital to scale its payments infrastructure, develop local currency on- and off-ramps, and pursue regulatory licensing in additional international markets.

What Latitude Does

Latitude's core commercial product, branded Global Payouts, allows U.S. businesses to send payments to individuals in more than 50 countries. The mechanism converts U.S. dollars via stablecoin rails into local currency at the receiving end. Podcast platform Zencastr is a confirmed user of the product, having used it to pay content creators based in India.

The company operates a second product line oriented toward crypto-native applications. That offering enables users in markets such as Mexico and the Philippines to convert local currency into stablecoins — effectively the reverse flow of the Global Payouts product.

Latitude's infrastructure sits at the intersection of stablecoin settlement and local payment rails, processing USD outflows into local currencies across more than 50 countries without requiring recipients to hold or interact with digital assets directly.

The Correspondent-Banking Argument

Visa's published thought leadership on stablecoin cross-border payments, cited in the verified research package, describes stablecoin-based transfers as a potentially faster and cheaper alternative to traditional correspondent banking — a multi-leg process that can introduce delays and incremental fees at each intermediary. Latitude's product design reflects this thesis: stablecoin settlement collapses the intermediary chain, with local currency conversion handled at the destination rather than across sequential correspondent relationships.

Whether stablecoin rails consistently deliver cost advantages at scale remains a live question in the industry; editorial analysis notes this debate exists but the package does not contain primary-source data resolving it in either direction.

Investor Composition and Strategic Framing

The funding coalition spans both conventional fintech venture capital and crypto-native institutions. NEA participated in both the seed and Series A rounds. Coinbase appeared at seed stage, with Coinbase Ventures returning for the Series A. Paxos and the Solana Foundation anchored the crypto-infrastructure dimension of the seed syndicate, while Oak HC/FT and OpenFX joined at Series A.

In regulatory terms, analysts observe that a mix of fintech-focused and crypto-native backers can broaden the range of institutional relationships available as a company pursues licensing across multiple jurisdictions — though the package does not attribute this observation to a named source, and it is presented here as editorial context only.

Wilson Sonsini is noted in secondary reporting as connected to the Series A. The capacity in which the firm participated — whether as a capital investor or in an advisory role — could not be confirmed from the primary sources contained in the verified research package, and is therefore not included in the investor list above pending verification against the BusinessWire press release.

Use of Proceeds

Latitude has stated that Series A capital will be directed toward three areas: scaling the company's payments infrastructure, building out additional local currency ramps, and expanding its international regulatory licensing footprint. The company has not publicly specified target jurisdictions for licensing beyond the general framing of international expansion.

The fundraise arrives as institutional attention on stablecoin-based cross-border payment infrastructure has grown, driven in part by the limitations of correspondent banking for high-frequency, lower-value international disbursements — precisely the use case Global Payouts is designed to address.