Original author: Karen, Foresight News
This article was originally published on August 30, 2024. The original title is: (Raising $58 million, how does Bridge build the Web3 version of Stripe?)
Update on October 21: According to Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, "Payment giant Stripe has acquired stablecoin platform Bridge for $1.1 billion." The Block said, "Bridge is Stripe's largest acquisition to date and the largest acquisition in the history of Web3." In October, Stripe officially launched and supported USDC payments, accepting stablecoin payments from more than 150 countries. Buyers can pay USDC from Ethereum, Solana and Polygon chains.
This week, Bridge announced that it had completed a $58 million financing round, with support from investment institutions including Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, Index Ventures, Haun Ventures and 1confirmation.
In fact, Bridge has been under construction for more than two years. Both of Bridge's co-founders have deep backgrounds in Coinbase and other well-known fintech companies. CEO Zach Abrams has served as chief product officer at fintech company Brex, consumer director at Coinbase, and general manager at Square. CTO Sean Yu has worked as a senior engineer or engineering manager at Airbnb, Coinbase, Doordash, and Square.
It is worth mentioning that, according to Techcrunch, the two founders co-founded the P2P payment platform Evenly as early as 2012, which is committed to simplifying the payment process between friends to share bills and other expenses. The following year, Evenly was acquired by Square, further verifying their innovation and strength in the payment field.
Bridge: Stripe for Web3
Bridge can be seen as the Web3 version of Stripe. Through a simple and easy-to-use API interface, it helps companies easily cross the threshold of stablecoin adoption, making the transfer and receipt of stablecoins more convenient and low-cost. Whether it is integrating stablecoin payments, helping companies issue their own stablecoins, or achieving efficient cross-border fund transfers, Bridge provides a full range of support and solutions.
Bridge's Orchestration API and Issuance API bring a more convenient experience to enterprises and developers. The former helps enterprises seamlessly integrate stablecoin payments, while Bridge handles all regulatory, compliance and technical complexities; the latter allows enterprises to quickly issue their own stablecoins in minutes, accepting US dollars, euros, USDC, USDT or any other stablecoins while settling funds in the company's own stablecoins, and the reserves can be invested in US Treasury bonds to earn income.
Bridge said that using its API, funds can be transferred globally in minutes, stablecoin payments can be sent seamlessly, local fiat currencies can be converted into stablecoins, and US dollar and euro accounts can be provided to consumers and businesses around the world, allowing customers to save and spend in US dollars and euros.
Bridge processes over $5 billion in annual payments
Bridge has attracted many customers, including SpaceX. According to Fortune magazine, SpaceX uses Bridge to collect payments in different currencies in different jurisdictions and transfer them to its global treasury through stablecoins. Bridge has also established partnerships with crypto companies such as blockchain network Stellar and Bitcoin payment application Strike to provide infrastructure for their own stablecoin payment functions. In addition, Coinbase has also adopted Bridge's services to support transfers between Tether on Tron and USDC on Base. According to statistics, Bridge has processed more than $5 billion in annual payments.
@TTx 0x revealed that it has talked with 25 to 30 crypto payment companies in the past few weeks and found that these companies generally use or plan to use Bridge's services.
In terms of compliance, Bridge has obtained operating licenses in many places around the world. Fortune magazine reported that Bridge currently has licenses in 48 states and a VASP license in Poland, and is applying for further licenses in New York, Europe and elsewhere. According to Conviction, in areas where Bridge is not yet compliant, they have established partnerships to cover a wider range of services, for example, working with Bitso for B2B payments in Latin America.
Looking ahead, we will keep a close eye on whether Bridge can lead the transformation of the stablecoin payment field and inject new vitality and possibilities of stablecoin and legal currency capital flow into the world, including Africa.
reference:
https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/08/29/bridge-stablecoins-sequoia-ribbit-index-haun-58-million/
https://conviction.finance/2024/bridge-xyz-the-unknown-giant/
