Merge Notches $9.5M Seed Funding to Bridge Fiat, Crypto

FinTech infrastructure startup Merge secured $9.5 million in seed funding to further build out its API-based banking and payments platform aimed at bridging the gap between fiat and crypto ecosystems.

The funding was led by Octopus Ventures with participation from Hashed, Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research and Ethereal Ventures, and angel investors including the founder of Aave, the co-founder of Polygon, the CEO of Ledger, the former CEO of Barclays Consumer Banking and others.

“Merge’s vision is to build the infrastructure necessary to allow crypto businesses to operate without fear of shutdown by regulators or third-party risk teams,” Zihao Xu, investor at Octopus Ventures, said in a press release.

“As the crypto economy moves further into the mainstream, it’s increasingly clear that the current financial infrastructure isn’t fit to serve the rapid expansion of crypto-native businesses, and many providers aren’t specialized enough to gauge risk,” Xu said.

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Merge is tackling the myriad problems that many firms in the crypto economy face when it comes to accessing traditional financial services, such as high fees and substandard functionality. While the Web3 economy is estimated to represent a $1 trillion market, crypto businesses are perceived as high-risk by tier 1 banks, per the release.

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“Exponential growth of crypto startups evidently led to dramatic increase in CeFi and DeFi assets under management, giving us strong confidence in Merge as the infrastructure provider to those institutions. Institutional players will naturally seek a reliable compliance infrastructure, and Merge is the only one-stop solution that is specifically catering to their needs,” said Baek Kyoum Kim, partner at Hashed.

Launched in 2020, Merge uses a single API to offer cryptocurrency and Web3 companies a range of banking and payments solutions, including the ability to instantly create bank accounts, send payments and convert funds between fiat and crypto.

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