OpenTrade, a London-based financial technology platform focused on real-world asset (RWA) lending and stablecoin-based yield, has secured $17 million in a strategic funding round. The raise, co-led by Mercury Fund and Notion Capital with participation from a16z Crypto, AlbionVC, and CMCC Global, pushes the startup’s total funding to over $30 million. The capital will be deployed to expand system infrastructure, grow teams across asset management, trading, engineering, and customer success, and scale its lending operations to meet surging demand for stablecoin-denominated returns.
OpenTrade bridges traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi) by offering loans backed by tangible assets such as real estate, commodities, and receivables, using stablecoins as the primary lending currency. The platform serves fintechs, neobanks, exchanges, and asset issuers by providing ready-made infrastructure for yield products linked to real-world assets, denominated in both U.S. dollar and euro stablecoins. This model eliminates the need for partners to build custody or trading systems from scratch, accelerating the integration of regulated yield into digital asset channels.
The funding arrives amid a global stablecoin supply that has surpassed $300 billion, signaling deep institutional and retail appetite for compliant, yield-bearing digital cash alternatives. OpenTrade has already gained traction, recording more than $250 million in transaction volume in 2025 and over $200 million in total value locked, with partners like Littio, Midas Kripto, and Glim. The company expects processing volumes to exceed $1 billion by the end of 2026.
A key component of the expansion is the rollout of a permissionless protocol layer alongside Curation+, a vault curation framework that operates under regulated asset management oversight. Unlike basic DeFi vault curators, Curation+ enables active yield strategies and portfolio construction across real-world assets and on-chain instruments. The company has also introduced transferable position-tracking tokens, allowing asset issuers to access decentralized distribution. The first live implementation is through Sierra Protocol and its SIERRA liquid yield token, which draws on curated vaults backed by money market funds, commercial paper, and trade finance, linking stablecoin products with diversified real-world income streams.
With top-tier venture backing and a clear roadmap for both permissioned and permissionless infrastructure, OpenTrade is positioning itself as a critical enabler of institutional-grade, compliant yield access. The latest round validates the growing convergence of traditional finance and DeFi, as well as the rising demand for transparent, stablecoin-based lending solutions.
