Augustus, a bank startup backed by Palantir founder Peter Thiel, announced Tuesday it raised $180 million in Series B capital at a $1 billion valuation. The fundraising round was led by New York City investment firm Tiger Global with participation from Hummingbird, QED and leaders in the fintech space like former Coinbase chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan, among others.
In May, Augustus received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, passing a key regulatory hurdle as it brings its innovative “clearing bank for the AI era” concept to market. Clearing banks are banks that can process, verify and settle transactions, often acting as intermediaries between other banks.
The bank’s espoused purpose is to secure “Western currency dominance” by providing access to the American dollar and euro to international fintechs and banks, and it already counts $20 billion crypto exchange Kraken among its customers. Services advertised on Augustus’ website include moving money through stablecoin payments and margin loans borrowed against Bitcoin and digital assets.
“We started Augustus with a simple thesis: the Dollar is the greatest product in the world but its distribution is fundamentally broken,” said Ferdinand Dabitz, CEO and co-founder of Augustus, in a release. “This financing lets us execute on our mission to provide high-quality dollar access to international fintechs and banks. It’s time to dollarize the world.”
Augustus, named for the emperor credited with stabilizing the Roman Empire’s currency, has raised $210 million to date. The bank’s holding company was founded in 2022 by Dabitz, a now-25-year-old Thiel Fellow, and co-founders Joshua Becker, Simon Wimmer and Peter Lieck. It cites efforts from Russia and China to challenge the dollar as the global currency as reasons for Augustus' necessity.
Greg Quarles, formerly the CEO of Green Dot Bank, United Texas Bank and H&R Block Bank, serves as president of Augustus, and Joe Schenone, an alum of JPMorgan Chase and Japan’s MUFG, as CFO.
According to The Dallas Business Journal, Augustus has signed a five-year, 5,000-square-foot lease at 2505 McKinnon St. in Uptown Dallas, and employees will move in July 27. Around 20-30 employees are expected to eventually work out of the Dallas office, with additional staff in New York City. Currently, Augustus employs around 50 people with plans to get to 100 in the long term.
“Correspondent banking is the last remaining part of the bank stack that hasn’t been challenged yet by fintechs. Global fintechs and banks have been left either with slow, low-tech incumbent correspondent banks, or middleware fintech providers,” said Nigel Morris, cofounder of Capital One and managing partner at QED Investors, in the release. “Augustus solves this by combining cutting-edge technology with a real bank charter, providing international financial institutions with a modern, direct dollar clearing platform.”