Grace Ashiru
Yellow Card, the Africa-born stablecoin infrastructure provider, has raised $40 million in strategic equity funding to expand its push into bank-grade stablecoin payments. The round brings its total equity funding above $120 million, at a valuation reportedly well above the $200 million it carried in 2022, though still short of $1 billion, according to a person familiar with the deal cited by CoinDesk. Neither CEO Chris Maurice nor the company confirmed the figure.
Backers in the round include SC Ventures (Standard Chartered’s venture arm), Sony Innovation Fund, Polychain Capital, and Blockchain Capital.
Maurice, who co-founded Yellow Card with CTO Justin Poiroux, said the company is working with commercial banks globally to move dollars onchain and eventually cut out payment intermediaries altogether, a direct challenge to legacy rails like Swift. Swift itself said last month it was piloting a blockchain ledger.
The new capital will go toward expanding Yellow Card’s Global USD Accounts product, letting businesses hold dollars, hold and swap stablecoins, manage treasury, and move local currency through domestic rails in more than 50 countries. The company plans to add stablecoin and local payment options in Latin America and Asia-Pacific next.
Maurice said flows have historically split roughly evenly between corporates and large financial institutions, with bank volumes now growing faster as bigger players adopt the system. Founded in Africa in 2016, Yellow Card says it has processed more than $10 billion in transactions and holds licenses or registrations in 22 jurisdictions.
