A Los Angeles-based fintech company most people have never heard of just crossed the billion-dollar valuation mark, and it did so by acting less like a crypto exchange and more like a bank hiding stablecoins in plain sight. Fasset, which uses digital tokens as behind-the-scenes settlement infrastructure rather than a product consumers actively trade, reached a $1 billion valuation after closing a $68 million funding round led by Japan's SBI Group.
The round, reported by finance.biggo.com, brings Fasset's total raised this year to $119 million, following a $51 million round in May 2026 that included Speedinvest and SBI Group among its backers. Fasset chief executive Mohammad Raafi Hossain said the company processes more than $40 billion in annualized transaction volume across 125 countries, according to the outlet's reporting. The company has also been profitable for 12 consecutive months and grew revenue roughly sixfold year over year, per the same report.
A Bridge Between Japan and Emerging Markets
SBI's involvement goes well beyond a typical venture check. As part of an expanded strategic collaboration announced in August 2026, SBI Holdings and Fasset plan to jointly operate a digital bank in Malaysia and distribute digital tokens issued by Fasset, according to FX News Group. SBI Holdings has also said it plans to exercise warrants following the round to further increase its stake and convert Fasset into an equity-method affiliate, the outlet reported.
That deepening tie traces back to May 2026, when SBI Group subsidiary SBI Remit Co., Ltd. signed a memorandum of understanding with Fasset to develop next-generation international remittance infrastructure linking Japan with emerging markets, FX News Group reported. Fasset works with SBI Remit, which provides access to a remittance network spanning roughly 470,000 locations and supports bank-account transfers to about 200 countries, per finance.biggo.com's reporting. Hossain said Fasset and SBI want to connect more corridors and financial rails across Japan, Asia and other emerging markets, though the two companies have not yet named specific products or new corridors.
Stablecoins as Invisible Plumbing
Fasset is built on what it calls the Own Network, described as a proprietary, AI-enabled Ethereum layer 2 infrastructure built on Arbitrum. The network integrates 16 distinct blockchain networks and connects with more than 100 banking corridors primarily across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, according to LeapRate. It links banks, telecom companies, payment firms, liquidity providers and other financial institutions, and Fasset says it will use the new capital to expand the Own Network along with the AI systems that route transactions based on cost, speed and availability.
Hossain has said customers interact with stablecoins at many different points on Fasset's platform, even though the company positions itself as a neobank rather than purely a token issuer or exchange. The business allows consumers and businesses to hold, send, spend and invest across currencies and assets, with its business model focused on payments rather than exchange or trading volume, and its revenue derived primarily from institutional and retail businesses.
Growth Metrics and Wider Institutional Interest
Fasset's annualized transaction volume grew from $32 billion during its Series B round in May 2026 to over $40 billion by August 2026, according to Cryptopolitan. By August, the company reported serving more than 3 million user wallets and over 1,000 enterprise clients globally, up from 2 million individual and small business users just three months earlier, per IT Brief Australia.
The May round also drew participation from Bahrain-based asset manager Investcorp and Turkish investment firm Arz Portföy, according to FinTech Futures. Fasset was co-founded in 2019 by Hossain, a former advisor to the UAE Prime Minister's Office, and COO Daniel Ahmed, after the company raised a $22 million Series A in April 2022 led by Liberty City Ventures and Fatima Gobi Ventures, the outlet noted. Before the latest round, Fasset had already partnered with Mastercard in July 2022 to drive financial inclusion in Indonesia and with Tether in April 2026 to launch a gold-backed Visa card tied to tokenized real-world assets, according to Blockworks.
Compliance Across Six Jurisdictions
Fasset holds a full Virtual Asset Service Provider license from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, granted in 2024, along with regulatory authorizations across Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, the EU, and the United States, according to ExitStack. That multi-jurisdictional footprint underpins the company's pitch to institutional partners like SBI, which has separately invested in Circle, Ripple, crypto liquidity provider B2C2, and DeFi lender Morpho, per finance.biggo.com's reporting.
Fasset's billion-dollar valuation places it among a small group of crypto-adjacent startups with unicorn status, and its trajectory reflects a broader shift among traditional finance institutions toward stablecoin infrastructure built for cross-border banking rather than speculative trading. Stablecoins are increasingly used in remittances, corporate treasury operations and international payments, a dynamic Fasset and SBI appear intent on expanding as they push further into Japan, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
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