The archive · Money & Fintech · Strategic decision · 2023–2026
Depay bets QR payments can cross borders; $400M processed in year one
Depay connects Latin America's Pix, QR and instant-payment systems through one API; within a year it processed $400M+ and raised a $4M seed.
Depay
What the business is
Cross-border payment infrastructure: Depay connects national QR and real-time payment systems so banks and wallets can accept payments in other countries through one integration, handling interoperability, FX conversion and settlement itself.
Starting capital：Backed early by Techstars, Krealo VC, Seedstars, Stellar and DCG; a $4M seed in April 2026 was led by North Island Ventures with DCG, CMT Digital, Verda Ventures, Onigiri Capital and Hash3.
How it started
Joaquín Fagalde led a crypto-payments project at AB InBev before hitting the structural gap: no infrastructure let digital wallets work across Latin American borders. In 2023 he left corporate life and founded Depay in Buenos Aires with Marcelo Sánchez and Federico Testoni to connect the region's payment systems; the first hurdle was convincing banks and wallets, not writing software.
What happened
Depay went live across Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Peru. In June 2025 Brubank, Argentina's largest digital bank, began letting users pay in Brazil through Pix on Depay's rails — the first Argentine bank to do so — with automatic real-time peso-to-real conversion. The architecture mixes local payment rails with a blockchain layer that settles cross-border flows in stablecoins, mostly USDT. In April 2026 Depay raised a $4M seed led by North Island Ventures to extend the network across Latin America, connect Asian instant-payment systems and enter Africa and Europe.
How it ended up
Still early but moving: Depay says it processed more than $400M in instant payments in under a year and built a network reaching more than 300M users, with clients including Binance, belo, Airtm, Brubank and Takenos. It operates in five of the 80-plus countries that have real-time systems and aims to replace card networks and SWIFT for cross-border flows.
Background
Joaquín Fagalde, Marcelo Sánchez and Federico Testoni founded Depay in Buenos Aires in 2023 after noticing that Latin America's digital wallets could not be used outside their home countries. Fagalde had led a crypto-payments project at AB InBev, where he found the barrier was not only technical but regulatory and commercial: no infrastructure let a wallet operate across borders simply.
Depay's answer is a single API that connects national QR and instant-payment systems — Pix in Brazil, interoperable QR in Argentina, PSE in Colombia, Yape and Plin in Peru — so a bank or wallet can accept payments abroad as if local. Depay handles interoperability, currency conversion and real-time settlement itself, using local rails plus a blockchain layer that settles cross-border flows in stablecoins, mostly USDT, rather than card networks or correspondent banking.
The first public proof came in June 2025, when Brubank, Argentina's largest digital bank, let its users pay Brazilian merchants through Pix using peso balances — the first Argentine bank to do so — with automatic, real-time conversion. Depay by then was live in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Peru and had signed QR-payment alliances with digital-dollar platform Airtm and other partners.
In April 2026 Depay closed a $4M seed led by North Island Ventures, with DCG, CMT Digital, Verda Ventures, Onigiri Capital and Hash3 joining, to deepen Latin American coverage and connect systems in Asia, Africa and Europe. At the round it reported processing more than $400M in payments in less than a year and a network reaching more than 300M users, with clients including Binance, belo, Airtm, Brubank and Takenos — traction that supports the thesis that interoperability, not another wallet, is the scarce asset.
What has to be true
- Latin America's QR and instant-payment systems grew country by country, so the scarce asset became the bridge between them — not another wallet competing for the same users.
- Fagalde saw the gap inside AB InBev: wallets could not cross borders for regulatory and commercial reasons, not just technical ones, so Depay had to sell banks a complete solution, not code.
- Settling in stablecoins let Depay bypass card networks and correspondent banking for cross-border flows, turning FX and settlement into a real-time software problem.
- Early partners like Brubank were the wedge: one flagship bank going regional on Depay's rails proved the model to the rest of the market.
What can be applied
When every country builds its own fast-payment island, the value sits in the interconnecting layer; the moat is regulatory and commercial trust, not code.
Aftermath
As of September 2026, Depay is compounding early: over $400M processed in under a year, a network reaching 300M+ users, and a $4M seed in April 2026 led by North Island Ventures to expand across Latin America and into Asia, Africa and Europe. Clients include Binance, belo, Airtm, Brubank and Takenos, and Brubank's Pix launch proves a bank can go regional without branches abroad. The open question is execution: Depay operates in five of 80-plus real-time-payment countries, and stablecoin settlement plus per-country regulation will decide whether the network compounds or stalls.
Sources
- De una idea disruptiva a la fintech que está revolucionando los pagos digitales en Latinoamérica
- Depay y Brubank conectan Argentina con Brasil a través de pagos digitales sin fronteras
- Depay recauda US$4M de North Island Ventures para transformar los pagos internacionales
- Depay raises $4M seed round
- Fintech argentina Depay levanta más de US$4M para escalar su infraestructura de pagos instantáneos cross-border desde Latam
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