Augustus raises $180m at $1bn valuation to modernise correspondent banking with stablecoin rails

Augustus, a startup building a federally chartered clearing bank, has raised $180 million in a round led by Tiger Global that values the company at $1 billion. Investors include Hummingbird, QED, and the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle, and Deel. The capital will be used to expand dollar payment infrastructure, grow the customer base across Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, and pursue final approval on a conditional national bank charter granted by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in May.

The firm’s argument is structural rather than product-level: existing correspondent banking is slow, closed on weekends, and settles on a two-day cycle, creating what CEO Ferdinand Dabitz characterises as a failure at the clearing layer rather than the distribution layer. Augustus is not positioning itself as a stablecoin issuer; it is positioning itself as the infrastructure layer that connects traditional payment rails and blockchain networks with programmable, always-on settlement. It already operates euro clearing through a regulated entity in Finland, processing billions of euros annually, with clients including Kraken and a broader roster of international fintechs and banks.

The OCC conditional approval is the near-term fulcrum. Once final approval arrives, Augustus gains direct access to U.S. dollar clearing, which transforms its existing euro-clearing proof of concept into a dollar-denominated offering at a moment when stablecoin legislation in Washington is advancing. Dabitz’s assertion that clearing banks will offer stablecoin rails as routinely as they offer Fedwire within a decade sets the strategic horizon; the more immediate signal is that well-capitalised investors are now funding the plumbing layer, not just the issuers sitting on top of it.