Merge, which is building an API-based banking and payments platform, has collected $9.5m in its seed funding round.
The investment round was led by Octopus Ventures, with participation also coming from Hashed, Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research and Ethereal Ventures. Several angel investors also joined the round, including the founder of Aave, co-founder of Polygon, CEO of Ledger, and former CEO of Barclays Consumer Banking, amongst other prominent investors.
Merge aims to help crypto companies overcome challenges around access to traditional financial services, without hefty fees and poor functionality. It claims to offer a seamless way for crypto and web3 companies to hold and transfer fiat funds, convert between fiat and crypto and manage compliance from a single API.
Its platform is also designed to help with compliance, with all processes completely compliant with regulatory requirements and information security practices.
Octopus Ventures investor Zihao Xu said, “As the crypto economy moves further into the mainstream, it’s increasingly clear that the current financial infrastructure isn’t fit to serve the rapid expansion of crypto-native businesses and many providers aren’t specialised enough to gauge risk.”
Octopus Ventures recently joined the $40m Series C funding round of Token.io, an open banking payments platform. The company offers open payment and data connectivity in Europe, spanning 16 EU countries.
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