Global dollar banking startup Augustus has closed a $180 million Series B funding round, achieving a $1 billion valuation. The investment was led by Tiger Global, with participation from Hummingbird, QED, and the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle, and Deel. The fresh capital brings the company’s total funding to $210 million since its founding in 2022.
Augustus aims to modernize the correspondent banking system by providing a federally chartered clearing bank designed for the stablecoin era. “Legacy clearing systems are slow, unavailable, take two days to settle, and close on weekends,” said CEO Ferdinand Dabitz. The platform will operate 24/7, be AI-native, and support programmable money and blockchain networks. It will not issue its own stablecoin but will offer the infrastructure for financial institutions to move funds seamlessly between traditional payment systems and decentralized networks.
The startup has already received conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to operate as a national bank. Once confirmed, this charter will grant direct access to dollar clearing, significantly expanding its operational reach. From its regulated entity in Finland, Augustus processes billions of euros annually and serves clients such as crypto exchange Kraken.
Management highlights include President Greg Quarles, a former bank CEO and senior OCC regulator, and Chief Compliance Officer Benjamin Alexander, who held leadership roles at JPMorgan and HSBC. The company’s mission of “dollarizing the world” targets markets in Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, where access to dollar banking is limited. Dabitz also emphasized that “if AI agents need to interact with the bank, they will need programmable money,” underlining the firm’s vision of unlocking trillions locked in correspondent accounts via stablecoins.
