KAST Secures $10 Million Seed Round Led by HSG and Peak XV Partners

December 12, 2024 – Cayman Islands, George Town

KAST, a financial technology platform built on stablecoins to deliver a neobank-style experience, has raised $10 million in seed funding.

The round is led by HSG (HongShan Capital Group) and Peak XV Partners. A number of high-profile angels, partners of DST Global and Goodwater Capital also joined the round.

Raagulan Pathy, co-founder of KAST, said,

“For most countries and over half of global 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.”

Pathy is a stablecoin expert, formerly the vice president for Asia Pacific and CEO 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 and working with partners such as Bridge, recently acquired by Stripe.

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

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

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

Daniel Bertoli, co-founder of KAST and former partner at Quona Capital, a global FinTech fund that focuses on investments in neobanks, said,

“The next generation of neobanks will be built on stablecoins 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.”

KAST has completed a $10 million seed funding round at an undisclosed valuation.

Within its first four months, the company has demonstrated strong early traction in terms of user adoption and revenue.

The team views this as a reflection of significant global interest in its platform.

Stablecoins have experienced remarkable growth with over $170 billion in supply and $8.5 trillion transaction volume in Q2 2024 by over 125 million users.

Analysts predict by 2030 – user numbers will exceed one billion and supply will…