Dragonfly Capital and Infinity Ventures Crypto led the pre-Series A funding round of Web3 infrastructure startup XLD Finance, which raised $13 million.

The funds will be used to enable XLD Finance to scale its product and engineering teams to accelerate its API and product development efforts. The investment will also be used to expand its network of licensed partner financial institutions and expand its merchant and biller network. 

Established in June 2021, XLD Finance is building infrastructure to enable the delivery of financial tools to emerging economies through APIs that bridge web 3.0 and traditional finance. Its core products include crypto-based payments, disbursements, and crypto-to-fiat offramp APIs which allow web3 and crypto projects to offer tools to their users typically available only to traditional financial institutions. XLD Finance currently serves customers in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam with a total merchant network of over 10,000.

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“People in emerging economies often encounter barriers that prevent them from creating financial accounts, paying for goods and services without their physical presence, sending money to loved ones cheaply, accessing affordable credit, and building a savings portfolio, hindering them from experiencing a better quality of life,” said Ian Estrada, co-founder and CEO, XLD Finance. “I want to see a future where anyone with a mobile phone or computer and internet access can use ‘bank-like’ financial tools through their favorite DeFi protocol or exchange.”

xSpend

The round saw participation from Advance AI, Circle, Digital Currency Group (DCG), IDG Capital, Insignia Venture Partners, Integra Partners, Morningstar Ventures, Openspace Ventures, Sfermion, Shima Capital, Transcend Fund, TrustToken (TUSD), UOB Venture Management, Woo Network, Yield Guild Games (YGG), YOLO Ventures, Emfarsis and 20 other investors.

In January 2022, XLD Finance launched its first ecosystem project, xSpend, a platform enabling users to spend their GameFi tokens and stablecoins to pay for utility bills, buy mobile credits, and purchase goods and services using only their Metamask, Phantom, or Ronin wallet. This month, XLD Finance is launching OmniX, a crypto disbursement platform that simplifies crypto disbursements allowing guilds and projects to pay thousands of people with crypto in three clicks. XLD Finance’s roadmap includes a crypto settlement API for merchants, an algorithmic stablecoin, and a web3 wallet Software Development Kit (SDK). 

“Through blockchain and decentralization, there exists an opportunity to solve the very real global challenge of financial access with less complexity; XLD’s blockchain-based products will become as relevant as more traditional options,” said Brian Lu, founding partner of Infinity Ventures Crypto.