SAN FRANCISCO: Latitude, a global payments infrastructure company that simplifies cross-border money movement, announced Wednesday it has raised $35 million in Series A funding led by Oak HC/FT, with participation from NEA, Coinbase Ventures, Lightspeed Faction, OpenFX and Wilson Sonsini.

The round follows an $8 million seed round earlier this year and brings the company’s total funding to $43 million.

Latitude connects stablecoins directly to local payment rails, allowing businesses to move money between stablecoins and local currencies in more than 50 countries. The company said it owns the licenses and handles compliance and regulatory work so customers can focus on building their products.

“Moving money should be as simple as sending a message,” said Cyril Mathew, co-founder and CEO of Latitude. “You shouldn’t need to understand stablecoins to use them. We built Latitude so a business can move money in and out of any market and have it just work.”

Stablecoins are among the fastest ways to move money globally, but converting them to and from local currencies — known as on- and off-ramps — remains slow and expensive in many markets outside the United States, the company said. Latitude said its network of liquidity partners routes each transfer to the best available price.

Latitude is licensed or approved to operate in 45 U.S. markets and is pursuing licenses internationally, according to the company.

“The real challenge is building the infrastructure for stablecoins that connects a global technology to the financial systems people and businesses rely on every day,” said Oivind Lorentzen, a partner at Oak HC/FT. “Latitude has taken on that hard work from the beginning.”

David Morgan, partner and head of accounting at Velo CFO, said his company has used Latitude to send payments to the Philippines that arrive within minutes.

Latitude was founded by Mathew, Brian Wrightson and Vivek Morzaria, who previously held leadership roles at Stripe, Coinbase, Meta, Uber and Zero Hash. The company serves payroll platforms, marketplaces, fintechs and wallets.