A16Z Crypto-Backed Shield increases $ 5 million to facilitate international business transactions in Crypto

Crypto Neo-Bank Shield announced on Monday that it has garnered a $ 5 million seeds led by Giant Ventures.

The company started in 2022 and revolved in payments in 2024, allowing exporters and importers to carry out cross -border transactions in US cryptocurrencies, while providing conformity projections, such as addressing sanctions and threats to money laundering.

Emmanuel Udotong, co -founder and chief executive, said he and his team began to be embraced because they were “frustrated by the lack of completion of mainstream use cases for encryption”. In the meantime, the “bad actors” continued to fill the space – and the titles.

“We wanted to help bring blockchain technology to the real economy by solving real problems,” Udotong told TechCrunch. So he worked with Isaiah’s brother and his best friend in college, Luis Carchi, and to deal with how Stablecoins could be used in international payments, as this was a pain point that faced the trio when they finally tried to build a commercial business.

“Today, commercial companies in regions such as Latin America, Africa and Asia sections often wait days or weeks for international cables, pay high fees and in many cases cannot have access to US dollars at all,” Udotong continued. “Many companies face limited trade corridors, fewer buyer opportunities, irregular growth and, in many cases, failure.”

There comes Shield, whom Udotong said she hopes to let international businesses boost their range – and profit – expanding access to customers in different markets. He said he was registered as a US money service business and has been registered as an EU encryption exchange.

Crypto had a roar returning this year, legalizing new unicorns and hitting hundreds of millions of dollars after a rumor of hard years. Shield said its release, has processed more than $ 100 million in payments, of which $ 40 million only came from the last month. But Shield enters a full field of competitors of dozens of newly formed businesses, and big names such as Paypal’s Xoom and the Stripe Bridge.

Shield met with its head investors, Giant Ventures, through a colleague founder. Others in the round include Chris Dixon’s starting accelerator, Factor Capital, alongside Coinbase and Bank of America as angel strategic investors. It has raised $ 7 million to date, the company said.

Fresh Capital will be used to ensure more banking partnerships, as the company already has two main banking partners, although it has refused to reveal exact names. It will also try to continue to create the compliance product.

“This involves expanding licenses, upgrading the tracking tracking and detection of fraud and the development of our compliance team and expertise,” Udotong said.

Overall, Udotong hopes the company will help give businesses more a fair opportunity while competing on a global scale.

“If we succeed, more businesses in areas that are not covered will survive and grow, creating jobs and wealth for their communities instead of being left behind,” he said.