This new funding accelerates Augustus' mission to dollarize the world-giving financial institutions around the world direct access to dollar accounts and rails through a modern, federally chartered bank. Augustus will use the capital to continue to serve leading fintechs and banks in Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
Augustus' API-first platform supports operating and FBO accounts with named virtual accounts. Customers can transact with first and third parties via Swift, ACH, SEPA, and stablecoins. Augustus will continue to invest in its proprietary core banking platform Marble, which enables faster settlement times and 24/7/365 availability by deploying AI across the bank's back office.
The financing follows Augustus' conditional approval for a U.S. national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in May, making Augustus the eighth bank to receive conditional approval since 2010. The conditional approval established Augustus as one of the few technology companies authorized to build federally regulated banking infrastructure in the U.S. from the ground up, enabling the company to provide customers with direct access to dollars, rather than relying on layers of intermediary banks and fintechs.
"We started Augustus with a simple thesis: the Dollar is the greatest product in the world but its distribution is fundamentally broken," said Ferdinand Dabitz, CEO and Co-Founder of Augustus. "This financing lets us execute on our mission to provide high-quality dollar access to international fintechs and banks. It's time to dollarize the world."
"After three decades in banking, I'll say it plainly: you don't get meaningful innovation by patching legacy infrastructure. You build something new from the foundation up," said Greg Quarles, President of Augustus. "That's what Augustus is: modern, proprietary technology fused with the full capabilities of a federally chartered bank into a single integrated platform. In my entire career, I have not seen anything like it."
"Correspondent banking is the last remaining part of the bank stack that hasn't been challenged yet by fintechs. Global fintechs and banks have been left either with slow, low-tech incumbent correspondent banks, or middleware fintech providers," said Nigel Morris, Co-Founder of Capital One and Managing Partner at QED Investors. "Augustus solves this by combining cutting-edge technology with a real bank charter, providing international financial institutions with a modern, direct dollar clearing platform."
Augustus is built at a time when Western currency dominance is being challenged. China has recently launched the Digital Yuan, and Russia is proposing BRICS Pay as an alternative clearing system. By providing a distinctly Western alternative to these ideas, Augustus hopes to help secure and advance Dollar and Euro dominance for the decades to come.
The round also received backing from leading fintech and AI founders, including David Velez (Nubank), Karim Atiyeh (Ramp), Sean Neville (Circle), Alex Bouaziz (Deel), Victor Cardenas (Slash), Alan Chang (CRO Revolut), Balaji Srinivasan (CTO Coinbase), Farooq Malik (Rain), Gavin Uberti (Etched), Victor Riparbelli (Synthesia), Alexander Rinke (Celonis), Jamie Cox (Fluidstack), and Jan Oberhauser (n8n). Additional investors include Soma Capital, Road Capital Management, CMT Digital, Brevan Howard Digital, and Variant.
Augustus is led by a team of banking, payments, and regulatory veterans with decades of experience building, supervising, and operating financial institutions. Its leadership includes Greg Quarles, former bank CEO and senior regulator at the OCC; Benjamin Alexander, former Chief Compliance Officer at Column and executive at JPMorgan and HSBC; and senior leaders whose backgrounds span banking regulation, payments infrastructure, compliance, and global financial services.
About Augustus
Augustus is building the Global Dollar Bank-a modern clearing bank built to provide dollar access to international fintechs and banks. Augustus is already processing billions for market leaders like Kraken today. Augustus was founded in 2022 by Ferdinand Dabitz, Joshua Becker, Simon Wimmer, and Peter Lieck, and has raised $210 million. Augustus is backed by Tiger Global, Hummingbird, QED, and the founders of companies like Ramp, Nubank, Deel, and Circle.
CONTACT: press@augustus.com
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