Yellow Card announces $40 million funding round to expand its stablecoin infrastructure

Yellow Card announced it raised $40 million in strategic equity funding to expand its stablecoin payment infrastructure. The round included SC Ventures, Standard Chartered's venture arm, Sony Innovation Fund, Polychain Capital and Blockchain Capital. It brings Yellow Card's total equity financing to more than $120 million at a valuation significantly higher than the $200 million it rated in 2022 but not yet $1 billion, one person close to the matter told CoinDesk. Neither Yellow Card CEO Chris Maurice nor the U.S.-based company's PR team confirmed the valuation. Maurice said the company is working with commercial banks globally to use stablecoins to bring more dollars into markets and replace legacy payment systems. "The very near future state for this industry is one where payments flow directly between banks onchain, without B2B payments companies or other payment service companies in the flow at all," Maurice said over Telegram. Yellow Card will use the new capital to expand Global USD Accounts, its dollar account product for businesses, and add stablecoin and local payment mechanisms in Latin America and Asia-Pacific. The accounts allow businesses to hold dollars, hold and swap stablecoins, manage treasury operations and collect or disburse local currencies through domestic payment rails in more than 50 countries, Yellow Card said. Maurice said the company's flows have historically been split roughly evenly between corporates and large financial institutions using its treasury-management and payments infrastructure. Bank volumes are now growing faster as large institutions adopt the company's system, he said. Yellow Card kicked off its operations in Africa, where it built operations across fragmented country-by-country regulatory jurisdictions. The firm said that since its founding in 2016, it has facilitated more than $10 billion in transactions and holds licenses, authorizations or registrations in 22 jurisdictions.