Augustus raised $180M at $1B to rebuild dollar access for the world's banks

Augustus is the 'Global Dollar Bank': a US-chartered bank giving banks and fintechs worldwide direct access to dollar accounts and payment rails.

A from-scratch, federally chartered US bank can give institutions abroad direct dollar accounts and payment rails, replacing layers of correspondent middlemen.

$210M raised in total, including the $180M round announced July 2026 at a $1B valuation

German Thiel Fellow Ferdinand Dabitz started the company in 2022 as a payments firm called Ivy, then rebuilt it as Augustus, a bank built from the foundation up. His president is Greg Quarles, a three-decade banker who spent years inside the regulator that hands out charters.

In May 2026 Augustus won conditional approval for a US national bank charter - only the eighth granted since 2010. In July 2026 it raised $180 million at a $1 billion valuation led by Tiger Global, with Hummingbird, QED and the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle and Deel joining. Its core platform, Marble, uses AI in the back office to settle around the clock; customers move money over Swift, ACH, SEPA and stablecoins, though Augustus will not issue a coin of its own. Crypto exchange Kraken is already a customer.

Correspondent banking is 'the last remaining part of the bank stack that hasn't been challenged yet by fintechs', as QED's Nigel Morris, a Capital One co-founder, put it.

Owning a national charter beats sitting on someone else's infrastructure - dollar distribution requires being the bank.

Pairing a 25-year-old founder with a three-decade banker who knows the regulator de-risked the charter play.

Using stablecoins as rails without issuing a coin hedges the crypto shift without regulatory exposure.

The last unchallenged layer of the bank stack is correspondent banking - and the way in is the hardest asset to copy: an actual national charter.

As of July 22, 2026, Augustus had raised $210 million in total at a $1 billion valuation, but the OCC approval is conditional and the bank cannot yet run as a chartered bank; final clearance is expected later in the year as regulators tighten rules around digital money and cross-border payments. The firm already clears euros through a regulated entity in Finland and counts crypto exchange Kraken as a customer. Dabitz expects every clearing bank to offer stablecoin rails within a decade, much as they offer Fedwire today.