Jun 24, 2025

Image: Fireblocks Share Especially for businesses in the global south, cross-border transactions are still defined by slow wires, hidden fees, and clunky banking infrastructure. Conduit , a four-year-old fintech based in the US, has been attempting to rebuild the plumbing of international money movement using blockchain and stablecoins. And after a quiet pivot away from decentralised finance (DeFi), the company says it’s found product-market fit in the real economy. Conduit recently raised a $36 million Series A round led by Dragonfly Capital, bringing its total funding to $53 million. It claims to be processing over $10 billion in annual transaction volume for 5,000+ merchants globally, with an embedded presence in over 100 fintech platforms. But the backstory of how it got here, and how it plans to scale, reveals more than just another crypto-adjacent payments play. From DeFi dreams to TradFi trenches Founded in 2021, Conduit initially focused on providing DeFi tools to institutions by offering APIs for fintechs and neobanks to integrate yield-generating crypto products. The collapse of firms like Terra and FTX in 2022 didn’t directly cause Conduit’s pivot, but it pushed startups with similar models to rethink their approach. “We moved from focusing on building integrated decentralised finance tools, to enabling cross-border payments for businesses using stablecoins and harnessing the power of blockchain,” Kirill Gertman, Conduit CEO, told TechCabal in an email. The company’s shift was not just about distancing itself from a broken DeFi ecosystem, but finding a clearer, more pressing problem to solve. “When we shifted to a cross-border payments product, it was about realising we needed a more differentiated and defensible offering,” Gertman said, adding that “cross-border payments in emerging markets was a much more clear and urgent problem to solve.” How does Conduit earn revenue? Conduit’s model rests on stablecoins, which are crypto tokens pegged to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar. These stablecoins are what the company uses to settle payments across borders. This model gives Conduit an edge in terms of speed, but the real trick lies in how it handles conversions and compliance across border lines. Unlike traditional providers that may charge separately for currency exchange and payment processing, Conduit says it keeps costs consolidated. “Our platform is built to move money across borders,” Gertman said. “FX is one of the pieces that makes that possible, but our customers aren’t being double-charged, they are charged for moving money from point A to point B.” In other words, Conduit bakes the FX and transaction costs into a single rate, rather than layering fees. This approach, it claims, helps reduce friction for customers and maintain price clarity. The firm earns revenue in two ways: it charges a fee each time a customer sends money, and it also earns from the difference between the rate it gets when converting currencies and the rate it offers to customers. This difference is known as the FX spread. So if Conduit converts stablecoins into local currency, say USDC to Kenyan shillings, it might get one rate from its bank partners but charge customers a slightly higher rate. That small margin becomes part of its revenue. But Conduit says its use of blockchain helps keep overall costs lower. It claims to offer better pricing and faster delivery than traditional systems by settling payments faster and cutting out some of the middlemen, like correspondent banks. Get the best African tech newsletters in your inbox ?> Growth through geography Conduit’s core clients are businesses that need to send money internationally, especially those paying suppliers or contractors in hard-to-reach markets. That includes payroll platforms, exporters, importers, and marketplaces. “We see a lot of growth from people wanting to make payments from the US internationally,” Gertman added. “We are seeing huge traction in Brazil and in Asia right now. A big focus of our Series A investment round is geographic expansion of our payments network, and we plan to open our first office in Asia later this year.” The company operates in nine countries and supports 14 different currencies, partnering with more than 20 local banks. One such partnership in Brazil offers a glimpse into how Conduit builds infrastructure-level advantage. “Braza [Group] owns the largest Brazilian foreign exchange bank and launched their own stablecoin tied to the Brazilian Real in February 2025,” Gertman said. “They have integrated that functionality directly into the Conduit platform, so when a Conduit customer uses our platform to make payments from Brazil to the U.S. or Europe in Brazilian Real, Braza Group will mint a stablecoin on the backend, which Conduit can swap for a U.S. or EUR dollar-backed digital currency.” The rails are the same, but with new thinking That tight integration between stablecoins and traditional rails is core to Conduit’s vision. “Our vision is to build the most seamless and scalable global payments network in the world that can replace correspondent banking,” said Gertman. “That is going to affect how we build, how we think and how we go to market.” In many emerging markets, businesses can’t easily access global banking, setting up foreign accounts or using SWIFT can be slow, expensive, or blocked. Platforms like Stripe and AZA Finance offer workarounds, but Gertman says Conduit goes further by embedding directly into local bank infrastructure and serving high-frequency business users, not just developers or exporters. The focus is on deep integration with banks and hands-on use cases beyond APIs,  like payroll and supplier payments. “We’re actually working to enable customers to move money globally,” he said. “We’re all looking at different types of customers.” How does Conduit approach regulations? As a stablecoin-based platform operating across multiple countries, Conduit faces steep compliance expectations. The company says it has built this into its product from day one. “Innovation and compliance are core pieces of the Conduit platform, and we have integrated AML, sanctions screening, and transaction monitoring,” Gertman said. “Our platform is designed to fully comply with the unique regulatory requirements of each market we operate in.” Gertman added that the company uses “a rigorous set of tools that monitor transactions across both fiat and on-chain transactions,” and that it has implemented “more precise, responsive and auditable controls with full transparency.” Profitability goals? One of Conduit’s stated goals last year was to reach profitability. It hasn’t, but that’s intentional. “We made the decision last year not to be profitable, but operate very close to breakeven, to focus on growth,” Gertman said. “We have a low burn rate and healthy revenue, which gives us optionality moving forward.” Conduit did not offer the specifics of this burn rate. The Series A funds will allow the company to double down on new markets, including Asia and Africa. “We are thoughtful about expanding to where there is most demand for our product, which means there is little tradeoff between expansion and profitability,” he added. The hard part is the boring part Cross-border payments have never been easy, and most people who use these services are sometimes not interested in the work that happens at the backend. Yet Conduit’s view is that the most transformative financial infrastructure will be invisible. The fintech startup wants to make sending money from Nairobi to New York a less cumbersome experience, and believes the best way to do that is by embedding itself at the core of how money moves. For the most part, Conduit’s playbook is similar to that of fintechs like it, but the difference might emerge in how it can keep pace with increasing competition and growing regulatory scrutiny as it expands into new markets. Mark your calendars! 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