$25 Million Seed Round Powers Blockchain-Based Bank Always-On
a16z Leads $25 Million Seed Round in OpenReserve Blockchain Bank
The crypto arm of venture firm Andreessen Horowitz has led a $25 million seed round in OpenReserve, a startup building a blockchain-based bank that never closes. The company's mission is to combine continuous money movement with regulated credit, leveraging stablecoins and a programmable core ledger for instant settlement.
According to the announcement, OpenReserve aims to address the limitations of traditional banking by operating 24/7 and using tokenized deposits and stablecoins to enable instant transactions. The company's founder, Dee Choubey, has previously built consumer finance platform MoneyLion.
The funding round follows recent capital flows into stablecoin-linked banks, including Augustus's $180 million raise for a stablecoin clearing bank. While the venture firm did not disclose the other investors or how the capital will be allocated, it emphasized that new banks are drawing capital due to the scarcity of lending expertise and the maturation of stablecoins.