These days, you can’t grab a coffee, scroll X, or attend a tech event without someone bringing up stablecoins.
Now, Miami’s firmly part of that conversation too.
Transak, a global web3 payments infrastructure provider whose tech powers over 450 platforms including MetaMask, Ledger, Phantom, Trust Wallet, and BitPay, has closed a $16 million strategic round led by Tether and IDG Capital. The raise will accelerate the company’s expansion into stablecoin-powered payments worldwide, and Miami is set to play a starring role.
With stablecoins now accounting for nearly 30% of Transak’s volume, the company sees them as more than just a crypto asset.
“They are now the rails for global value transfer,” co-founder and CEO Sami Start shared in a statement. “But making them usable at scale requires more than just liquidity. It takes real infrastructure: compliance systems, KYC, fraud prevention, banking partnerships, and deep crypto market knowledge. That’s exactly what we’ve built, and this round helps us scale it globally.”
Transak’s platform enables users in over 75 countries to move between fiat and stablecoins using local payment methods, bank transfers, cards, and virtual IBANs, all through a single API. Behind the scenes, it combines regulated on- and off-ramps, real-time liquidity routing, and full-stack compliance tooling so any app, from wallets to fintech platforms, can integrate stablecoin conversion without the operational headache.
The $16 million round, which also included Miami-based Fuel Ventures, Primal Capital, 1kx, Protein Capital, CEiC, KX VC, 3KVC, Genting Ventures, and Umami Capital, comes as the company has processed over $2 billion in transaction volume to date. Financial Technology Partners served as exclusive financial and strategic advisor.
For Andy Werner, Transak’s VP of Partnerships and Strategy, the funding is as much about geography as technology. Miami is currently home to just two people on the 120-person global team – Werner and Start – but the company is actively hiring across sales, marketing, partnerships, and a chief of staff role.
“If you join, you’re not in some satellite office,” Werner told Refresh Miami. “You’re working side-by-side with the CEO, grabbing coffee, brainstorming over lunch. For the right kind of person, that’s hugely compelling.”
Werner believes Miami offers something that’s hard to replicate elsewhere: a dense network of crypto builders, fintech veterans, and a direct gateway to Latin America. That’s a critical advantage as Transak deepens its presence in markets like Brazil and Argentina, where stablecoin adoption is growing fast for remittances, cross-border commerce, and treasury management.
“In Miami, you can walk into an event and end up in a serious conversation with someone running one of the biggest crypto companies in the industry,” he said. “That’s not something you can manufacture. There’s a real critical mass here.”
With a regulatory footprint spanning the US, UK, EU, Canada, Australia, and India – and expansion into the Middle East, Latin America, and Southeast Asia underway – Transak’s ambition is to be the financial plumbing that makes stablecoin payments as seamless as sending an email. And now, thanks to fresh backing from some of the industry’s biggest players, Miami will be one of the main control rooms for that vision.
Pictured above: Transak co-founders Yeshu Agarwal (left) and Sami Start (right).
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