Velocity extends Series A to $48M at $200M valuation with backing from Visa, Circle, and Ripple

Velocity has extended its Series A with an additional $10 million investment that brings the round to $48 million and sets the company's post-money valuation at $200 million, CEO Eric Queathem said. The extension attracted a mix of payments and crypto investors, including Visa Ventures, Circle Ventures and Ripple, alongside venture firms such as Haun Ventures, Translink Capital and Mirana Ventures.

The startup is building infrastructure to let banks and payment companies use stablecoins for settlement, liquidity management and treasury functions without forcing them to replace their existing systems. Velocity's platform is designed to slot into current payment flows and handle the back-end movement of funds on blockchain rails while leaving consumer-facing payment experiences intact.

Queathem, who previously worked at Worldpay — a firm that settles more than $2 trillion in payments annually — said that improvements in consumer payments have outpaced fixes to the underlying plumbing that moves money between issuers, networks, acquirers and merchants. He told CoinDesk that the original Series A was oversubscribed and described the need to modernize settlement and reconciliation as the core problem Velocity aims to solve.

Investors see stablecoins as a complementary layer under existing payment systems rather than a direct replacement for cards. Visa's growth product head Rubail Birwadker framed stablecoins as reshaping value movement across Visa's ecosystem and said Velocity is building infrastructure to bring stablecoin-powered flows to businesses. Velocity's chief growth officer, Matt Larson, added that most consumer interactions will likely remain unchanged even as funding and settlement behind card networks increasingly shift onchain. Queathem expects multinational firms to hold at least some capital onchain over time, creating demand for the reconciliation and treasury tooling his company is developing.