Coinbase Leads $14.6M Round for Stablecoin Startup Bastion

Stablecoin infrastructure startup Bastion has raised $14.6 million in a funding round led by Coinbase Ventures, the company said Wednesday.

According to a Wednesday announcement, the round also saw the participation of Japanese tech giant Sony, the investment subsidiary of South Korean phone maker Samsung, the crypto arm of venture capital (VC) firm Andreessen Horowitz and crypto VC firm Hashed.

Bastion is developing a platform that allows companies to issue stablecoins without securing their own licenses or building custom infrastructure.

The announcement comes shortly after Bastion closed a $25 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz earlier this month. The company said it had been “building in stealth mode” for months before the raises.

Related: Stripe rolls out stablecoin accounts in over 100 countries

Not just a white label stablecoin issuer

Bastion is a company purpose-built to issue stablecoins for third parties, rather than developing them for themselves. Still, the company offers more than just stablecoin issuance.

Earlier this month, the company explained that thanks to its services, “organizations of any size can now seamlessly integrate Web3 infrastructure into existing technologies through a compliant, white-label platform and API that includes custodial wallets, smart transaction routing, and data analytics.”

Bastion claimed this approach allows building better Web3 products “with the cost-efficiency, compliance, and security they expect from a Web2 technology stack.” The company expects that this will lead to higher growth in the Web3 space:

“Businesses are ready to onboard the next billion but, due to the limitations of web3 infrastructure today, struggle to provide the stellar experiences their customers deserve.”

Related: China’s JD.com registers ‘Jcoin’ ahead of Hong Kong stablecoin regime

Growing corporate interest in stablecoins

Nassim Eddequiouaq, Bastion co-founder and CEO, said the company “is growing to meet significant demand for regulated stablecoin infrastructure from some of the world’s largest enterprises.” He added:

“The evolution of our financial system will continue to accelerate as digital assets and stablecoin adoption proliferates, and Bastion is positioned to help businesses build world-changing financial products.”

The raise highlights increasing interest from large corporations in stablecoin technology. Earlier this week, Bullish Europe became the first platform to offer a stablecoin backed by finance giant Société Générale.

Kazakhstan’s central bank also launched a pilot project with a new stablecoin pegged to the local fiat currency in collaboration with Solana and Mastercard. In another example, payments behemoth PayPal expanded its PayPal USD stablecoin across eight new blockchains earlier this month.

At the end of July, EURAU, a new euro stablecoin venture backed by Deutsche Bank’s DWS, Flow Traders and Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy, made its way to the Ethereum blockchain.

Bastion had not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment by publication.