Augustus has raised $180 million in new funding, pushing the financial technology company to a $1 billion valuation as it expands its effort to help banks and financial institutions around the world access U.S. dollar banking services.
“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.”
The Series B funding round was led by Tiger Global, with participation from Hummingbird, QED Investors, existing investors, and the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle, and Deel, the company said July 21.
The new capital will be used to expand services for fintech companies and banks in Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
Augustus, which describes itself as the “Global Dollar Bank,” aims to give financial institutions direct access to U.S. dollar accounts and payment systems through a federally chartered bank rather than relying on intermediary banks.
The announcement comes two months after Augustus received conditional approval for a U.S. national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in May.
According to the company, Augustus is the eighth bank to receive conditional approval since 2010, allowing it to build federally regulated banking infrastructure from the ground up and offer customers direct access to U.S. dollars.
Augustus said its platform allows customers to open and manage accounts and move money through payment networks including SWIFT, ACH, SEPA, and stablecoins.
The company also plans to continue investing in its proprietary core banking platform, Marble, which it said is designed to speed settlement times, provide continuous availability and use artificial intelligence to automate back-office banking operations.
Greg Quarles, president of Augustus, said the company’s technology is designed to replace outdated banking systems rather than build on top of them.
“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,” Quarles said. “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.”
Nigel Morris, co-founder of Capital One and managing partner at QED Investors, said Augustus addresses longstanding challenges in correspondent banking by combining modern technology with a bank charter.
“Correspondent banking is the last remaining part of the bank stack that hasn’t been challenged yet by fintechs,” Morris said. “Global fintechs and banks have been left either with slow, low-tech incumbent correspondent banks, or middleware fintech providers. 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 said it is launching its platform as countries including China and Russia pursue alternative international payment systems.
The company said it hopes its banking infrastructure will help strengthen the long-term role of the U.S. dollar and the euro in global finance.