KAST, a Singapore-based financial-technology platform built on stable coins, has raised $10 million in seed funding.

The round is led by HongShan Capital Group (HSG) and Peak XV Partners, KAST said in a statement on Wednesday.

A number of high-profile angels, partners of DST Global, and Goodwater Capital also joined the round.

“For most countries and over half of global gross domestic product (GDP), banking does not match the openness and speed of the internet, it’s fundamentally broken,

“Stablecoins are the clear solution, but the user experience wasn’t great. We are building KAST to change this”, said Raagulan Pathy, KAST’s Co-Founder.

Pathy is a stable coin expert, formerly the Vice President for Asia Pacific and Chief Executive Officer for Singapore at Circle, best known for USDC.

KAST offers payment-cards and USD-denominated accounts to people in over 150 countries, the ability to receive and send cash, working with partners such as Bridge (recently acquired by Stripe).

They will soon launch savings and other remittance products — all without the need to touch fiat directly.

The maturing of stable coin regulation and acceptance has led to rapid integration with traditional finance networks, enabling users to send money faster, cheaper, and more securely.

KAST highlighted use cases such as holding USD stable coins as an alternative to volatile currencies, enabling people to buy imports and travel with a card, and allowing remote workers globally to get paid.

“The next generation of neobanks will be built on stable coins and inherently global by DNA,

“They will differ fundamentally from the current generation of neobanks, which are limited in countries due to licensing, and struggle in integrating blockchain; their core systems and capabilities are just too different,” said Daniel Bertoli, Co-founder of KAST and former Partner at Quona Capital, a global FinTech fund that focuses on investments in neobanks.

KAST closed a $10 million seed round at a significant undisclosed valuation.

The founders stated user growth and revenue in the first four months have been “beyond even the highest expectation, showing the near-unlimited pent-up demand globally.

According to KAST, stable coins have experienced remarkable growth with over $170 billion in supply, and $8.5 trillion transaction volume in the second quarter of 2024 by over 125 million users.

Analysts predict by 2030; user numbers will exceed 1 billion and supply will surpass $1 trillion.

“KAST delivers real benefits to global users. Their USD-denominated accounts provide a safe haven for hard-earned income when local currencies decline, especially for those without access to traditional US accounts,

“As more digital nomads receive salaries in stable coins, they can now bypass the hassle of legacy rails. International transfers that once took weeks can now be completed instantly and at virtually no cost,” said Alex Svanevik, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Nansen.ai, an early investor in KAST.

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