If you live in Miami, chances are that you’ve moved money across borders at one point or another. Simple, right? Sure, in small doses. But as you scale up, infrastructure-wide cracks begin to appear.
That gap – between how money should move and how it actually does – is where Miami-based startup XFX is building its business.
The company just raised $17 million in a Series A round led by Castle Island Ventures, with participation from Haun Ventures and Coinbase Ventures. The funding comes as stablecoins gain traction among investors and large financial players looking for faster ways to move money globally.
The company’s three cofounders – Santiago Alvarado, Jason Losh, and Alberto Sánchez Tello – met while working at Bitso, one of Latin America’s largest crypto platforms.
There, they saw firsthand how uneven the system still is. Crypto transactions can settle in seconds. Traditional banking rails can take days.
Alvarado, XFX’s CEO [pictured above], framed the problem in simple terms: “How can we process the maximum amount of volume with a minimum possible amount of capital?” he said, as reported by Fortune. “That is what we’re trying to build.”
What XFX has built so far is what he describes as an “engine” – a system designed to match buyers and sellers of currencies more efficiently. Instead of relying on slow, fragmented processes, the goal is to create deep liquidity between specific currency pairs so large transactions don’t get stuck or shift prices.
Right now, that focus is narrow by design. XFX, which was founded last year, supports exchanges between stablecoins and three fiat currencies: U.S. dollars, Mexican pesos, and Colombian pesos. The idea is to go deep before expanding outward.
“They’re building FX and payment infrastructure that matches the speed of stablecoins,” commented Chris Ahn, a partner at Haun Ventures.
That “messy middle” is where most of the real work still needs to happen.
XFX’s current customers include financial institutions, money transmitters, and crypto exchanges. With the new funding, the company plans to hire more quants and expand relationships with trading desks and banks.
Because moving money fast is one thing. Making it work reliably, at scale, across borders and currencies… that’s where things tend to break.
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