Diameter Pay raised $10 million in a Series A round co-led by CMT Digital and Lightspeed Faction to expand its stablecoin-based infrastructure for cross-border dollar payments, targeting the growing gap between traditional banking and blockchain settlement.
The Jersey City-based fintech said it has processed more than $10 billion in payment volume year-to-date in 2026, providing institutional clients with U.S. virtual accounts, domestic and international payment rails, and stablecoin on- and off-ramps across multiple banking partners.
The round closed in July after fundraising began in April, founder and CEO David Lighton told The Block. It is Diameter Pay’s first external funding round; the company was bootstrapped entirely until now.
Bridging Banks and Stablecoins
Diameter Pay sits between traditional banking infrastructure and stablecoin networks, offering compliance controls embedded directly into payment flows. Clients use it to move dollars internationally through a combination of wire transfers, ACH, and stablecoin settlement, all managed through a single unified platform.
The company supports virtual accounts in multiple currencies and provides the regulatory and compliance layer that banks require before touching crypto-linked payments. That includes know-your-customer checks, transaction monitoring, and reporting tools designed to satisfy U.S. banking regulations.
“Stablecoins are transforming how dollars move globally, but they don’t replace the need for trusted access to the U.S. banking system,” said Charlie Sandor, partner at CMT Digital. “Diameter provides that connective layer, combining traditional payment rails, stablecoin infrastructure, and compliance in a platform built for regulated financial institutions.”
The platform currently supports USDT and USDC, the two largest stablecoins by market capitalization. Lighton said the company plans to add support for additional stablecoins as the market matures and new regulated entrants launch their tokens. Each stablecoin settlement runs through Diameter’s compliance engine, which screens transactions against sanctions lists and applies automated risk scoring before funds move.
Revenue and Growth
The $10 billion processing volume puts Diameter Pay among the more active players in the stablecoin payments space, though it remains small compared to established payment processors like Stripe or Circle’s Cross Chain Transfer Protocol. The company charges fees on each transaction and earns spread on foreign exchange conversions.
Lighton said the company reached profitability on an adjusted basis before the fundraise, though he declined to share specific revenue figures. The bootstrapped path to $10 billion in annual volume is unusual in the fintech space, where most firms burn through venture capital to reach similar scale.
“We built this the hard way,” Lighton said. “No massive marketing budgets, no giveaways. Just institutions that needed a reliable way to move dollars through stablecoin rails and couldn’t find one that handled compliance properly.”
The company’s client base includes crypto exchanges, remittance providers, and fintech platforms that need to move dollars between U.S. banks and international accounts. Many of these clients previously relied on correspondent banking relationships that could take days to settle and carried high fees for smaller transactions, particularly in emerging markets across Latin America and Southeast Asia.
A Crowding Stablecoin Infrastructure Market
Other investors in the round included SixThirty Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation, Tech Council Ventures, Onigiri Capital, and BitRock Capital. The Stellar Development Foundation’s participation signals a focus on cross-border payments, where the Stellar network has existing partnerships with MoneyGram and other remittance providers.
The raise comes as stablecoin infrastructure attracts growing institutional interest. Circle, the issuer of USDC, went public earlier this year. Visa and Mastercard have both launched stablecoin settlement products. Several major banks are exploring their own stablecoin ventures, and the GENIUS Act, a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins, remains pending in Congress.
Total stablecoin supply crossed $320 billion in April, according to DefiLlama data, up from roughly $130 billion at the start of 2024. The growth has created strong demand for compliant infrastructure that can bridge traditional finance and blockchain-based dollar movement at scale.
The regulatory environment is shifting in stablecoins’ favor. The SEC clarified in April 2025 that “Covered Stablecoins” are not securities, removing a key legal overhang. The GENIUS Act, which would establish federal licensing and reserve requirements for stablecoin issuers, passed the Senate Banking Committee in March but has yet to reach a full floor vote. If enacted, it would create a uniform framework replacing the patchwork of state-by-state regulations that currently governs the industry.
Diameter Pay competes with firms like Bridge, which was acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion last year, and BVNK, a UK-based stablecoin payments platform that raised $50 million earlier in 2026. The competitive landscape is tightening as traditional payment giants move into the space, but Lighton argued that Diameter’s compliance-first approach gives it an edge with regulated institutions that need to satisfy multiple banking regulators simultaneously.
“The big players are building consumer-facing products,” he said. “We’re focused on the plumbing that makes those products work for banks and institutions. That’s a different market with different requirements.”
Diameter Pay will use the funding to expand its banking partnerships, deepen its stablecoin and foreign exchange capabilities, and hire across engineering and compliance. The company currently has 15 employees and plans to double that headcount by mid-2027, with particular emphasis on compliance staff as regulatory requirements tighten across jurisdictions.
The round also reflects growing venture capital interest in stablecoin infrastructure after a slow period in early 2026. CMT Digital, one of the co-leads, has backed several crypto-native payment firms including Bitso and Zero Hash, while Lightspeed Faction focuses specifically on blockchain infrastructure investments.
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