Stablecoin payments firm dtcpay closes $25 million Series A with SBI Group investment

Quick Take
- SBI Group has joined Singaporean stablecoin payments firm dtcpay’s funding round, extending its Series A to $25 million.
- Dtcpay said the fresh capital will enable it to scale its product suite and merchant network, including a revamped business portal for enterprise clients.
Singapore-based stablecoin payments firm dtcpay has completed its $25 million Series A funding round, with Japan's SBI Group joining as a strategic investor.
According to a Friday statement, SBI Group invested both through its subsidiary, SBI Ventures Asset Pte Ltd, and through the SBI-NTU-Kyobo Digital Innovation Fund.
Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India led the initial tranche of the round announced in April. Genedant Capital and existing investor Kwee Liong Tek, a prominent business figure in Singapore, also participated in the round.
The company said the fresh capital allows it to scale its product suite and merchant network, including a revamped business portal for enterprise clients and new consumer-friendly features rolled out within its dtcpay app.
"We did not raise this round to sustain what we have built," Alice Liu, founder and CEO of dtcpay, said in the statement. "We raised it to fundamentally change how money moves across borders."
The Series A completion came after the payments startup announced a $16.5 million pre-Series A round in June 2023.
Bridging the gap
Founded in 2019, dtcpay says it bridges digital assets with traditional finance through infrastructure that enables businesses and individuals to accept, store, and transact in stablecoins, according to the statement.
"Where traditional cross-border transfers via SWIFT and correspondent banking networks are often slowed by multi-day settlement cycles and layered intermediary fees, dtcpay settles transactions seamlessly, at a fraction of the cost," the company said.
The company launched a digital payment token point-of-sale service, which allows merchants to accept stablecoin payments directly in-store. It has also partnered with Visa to introduce a stablecoin-to-fiat Visa Infinite card for customers in Singapore.
"The next chapter for dtcpay is about scale," said Band Zhao, chairman of dtcpay. "We are strengthening our infrastructure, deepening partnerships with global financial institutions, and expanding into new regulated markets to make stablecoin payments as seamless and trusted as traditional payment rails."

Facts Only

* dtcpay closed a $25 million Series A funding round.
* SBI Group invested in dtcpay through SBI Ventures Asset Pte Ltd and the SBI-NTU-Kyobo Digital Innovation Fund.
* Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India led the initial tranche of the round.
* Genedant Capital and Kwee Liong Tek participated in the round.
* The funding allows dtcpay to scale its product suite and merchant network, including an enterprise business portal and new consumer features in the dtcpay app.
* Dtcpay bridges digital assets with traditional finance through infrastructure for accepting, storing, and transacting stablecoins.
* The company offers a digital payment token point-of-sale service for merchants.
* dtcpay partnered with Visa to introduce a stablecoin-to-fiat Visa Infinite card in Singapore.
* Dtcpay announced a previous $16.5 million pre-Series A round in June 2023.

Executive Summary

Singaporean stablecoin payments firm dtcpay completed a $25 million Series A funding round, with Japan's SBI Group participating as an investor. The capital infusion is intended to allow dtcpay to scale its product suite and merchant network, which includes developing a revamped business portal for enterprise clients and new consumer-friendly features for the dtcpay app. Dtcpay operates by bridging digital assets with traditional finance, providing infrastructure for businesses and individuals to accept, store, and transact in stablecoins. The company addresses inefficiencies in traditional cross-border transfers by offering seamless settlement at lower costs compared to legacy systems like SWIFT. Furthermore, the firm has launched a point-of-sale service for merchants accepting stablecoin payments and partnered with Visa to offer a stablecoin-to-fiat card in Singapore. Leadership stated the funding is aimed at fundamentally changing cross-border money movement rather than merely sustaining current operations, signaling a focus on expansion into new regulated markets and deepening financial institution partnerships.

Full Take

The narrative positions dtcpay as an infrastructural disruptor seeking to replace antiquated cross-border financial rails with a stablecoin-based system, framing the raise not as incremental growth but as a mandate for fundamental change. The strategic involvement of SBI Group signals an alignment between cutting-edge digital finance and established institutional capital, suggesting that the perceived fragility of new payment methods is being addressed through high-level strategic investment rather than purely consumer adoption metrics. The goal to "fundamentally change how money moves across borders" implies a significant challenge to existing banking intermediaries built around multi-day settlement cycles and intermediary fees. The focus on scaling infrastructure—merchant networks, enterprise portals, and regulatory expansion—suggests an awareness that technological innovation alone is insufficient; trust and systemic integration are the necessary next barriers. The pattern suggests that in emerging financial technology spaces, success hinges not just on the efficiency of the core technology (stablecoins) but on successfully navigating the friction points between decentralized solutions and centralized, regulated legacy systems. The underlying tension lies in balancing rapid product scaling with the slow, deliberate process of achieving systemic trust across global financial institutions.

Sentinel — Human

Confidence

The text reads like standard financial news reporting, focusing on verifiable facts about a funding round and company operations without exhibiting telltale signs of synthetic generation.

Signals Detected

Moderate sentence length variance and natural flow; uses direct quotes effectively.

Logically structured flow from funding announcement to company mission and product details.

Standard financial reporting structure; attribution is specific (names, dates).

Claims are attributed to named sources and verifiable events; no obvious LLM confabulation detected.

Human Indicators

The use of specific financial terms, proper attribution of funding rounds, and direct quotes from named executives suggest original reporting.

The narrative balances the commercial transaction details with the underlying technological problem being solved.