Latitude Raises $35 Million to Turn Stablecoins into Local Payments

Texas-based global payments infrastructure company Latitude is tackling the problem of converting stablecoins into local currency. Founded by industry veterans Cyril Mathew, Brian Wrightson, and Vivek Morzaria, who previously worked at Stripe, Uber, Coinbase, and Meta, Latitude aims to give businesses the infrastructure to use stablecoins for sending local currency through familiar methods.

The company announced that it raised $35 million in a Series A round led by Oak HC/FT, with participation from NEA, Coinbase, Lightspeed Faction, and OpenFX. This follows Latitude's $8 million seed round. The funding will be used to hire in compliance, engineering, legal, and sales, as well as maintain licenses across 45 U.S. markets and pursue direct licensing globally.

Latitude plans to expand beyond the U.S. by obtaining its own regulatory licenses in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Mathew's experience leading international payments at Uber led him to realize that stablecoins would have limited use unless recipients could easily convert them into local currency in bank accounts or digital wallets.