Vertex Ventures

Singapore-based dtcpay has closed a $25 million Series A round, adding Japan’s SBI Group as a strategic investor alongside lead backer Vertex Ventures. The deal signals that traditional financial conglomerates are moving from watching stablecoin payments to funding the merchant infrastructure that runs on them.

• dtcpay closed a $25 million Series A round with Vertex Ventures as lead investor.
• SBI Group joined later as a strategic investor to complete the funding round, not as the lead.
• dtcpay holds a Major Payment Institution license in Singapore, one of Asia’s key regulated payments hubs.

• $25M total Series A round size for dtcpay’s payments buildout
• $25M capital now earmarked for merchant and cross-border settlement tools
• $25M round that pulled SBI Group onto dtcpay’s shareholder register

dtcpay, a Singapore payments company that lets merchants move between fiat currency and digital assets, has completed a $25 million Series A financing round. Vertex Ventures led the original raise, while SBI Group joined afterward as a strategic investor to bring the round to close.

That sequencing matters: SBI did not lead the deal, but its late entry as a named strategic backer carries weight given the group’s reach across Japanese banking, securities and digital assets.

dtcpay operates under a Major Payment Institution license issued in Singapore, placing it inside one of Asia’s most tightly regulated payments jurisdictions rather than in an offshore gray zone. The company says the fresh capital will fund further development of merchant payment and cross-border settlement infrastructure, per the dtcpay announcement.

Vertex Ventures Leads, SBI Group Follows With Strategic Weight

The distinction between leading and joining is the detail institutional readers should hold onto. Vertex Ventures put up the original capital that anchored the round, while SBI Group arrived later to complete the $25 million total as a strategic rather than financial-first investor.

For a payments company scaling across Asia, a strategic partner with SBI’s banking and securities footprint can open doors that a pure venture check cannot.

dtcpay is not positioning itself as another crypto exchange chasing retail speculation. It is building the merchant-facing settlement layer that sits on top of stablecoin rails, closer in function to a payments processor than a trading venue.

Stablecoins Replace Volatile Crypto As The Settlement Asset Of Choice

Dollar-denominated stablecoins have become the preferred bridge asset for payment companies because they let cross-border settlement move faster without exposing merchants to the price swings of assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum. A stablecoin can travel across blockchain rails while behaving economically like cash sitting in a bank account.

That combination, speed without volatility, is what makes stablecoin infrastructure attractive to a regulated Singapore institution rather than a crypto-native exchange.

dtcpay’s raise fits the same pattern: banks and payment groups are backing the plumbing, not the trading front end.

Consumer-Facing Fintech Bets Are Chasing The Same Rails

dtcpay’s approach mirrors a broader trend of fintech products embedding blockchain settlement behind familiar financial interfaces rather than asking users to adopt crypto directly.

The CCS read. SBI’s move reads less as a bet on dtcpay’s balance sheet and more as a hedge on which regulated Asian payments rail wins merchant adoption first. Expect SBI to use the stake for distribution into its own banking and brokerage network rather than treat it as a passive financial holding, positioning dtcpay as an entry point into Japanese institutional stablecoin flows.

dtcpay has not disclosed a timeline for deploying the $25 million or named which markets its cross-border settlement expansion will target next, leaving open whether SBI’s involvement extends into Japan’s own stablecoin regulatory framework in the coming quarters.