OpenFX, the cross-border payments company that has built a fast-growing hub in downtown Miami, is rolling out its own venture investment arm, and it has already put money behind two other local fintechs, Jeeves and Cyclops. The new unit, OpenFX Ventures, plans to invest between $20,000 and $100,000 in early-stage companies building the next generation of payments infrastructure.
A Miami Fintech Backing Its Neighbors
The venture arm is led by Karan Shah, OpenFX's chief of staff, according to Refresh Miami. Portfolio companies will get more than just capital — per a news release cited by the outlet, they will also receive connectivity to OpenFX's markets and early access to upcoming products and capabilities. OpenFX had reportedly already begun making investments informally roughly a year before this announcement, starting with small checks to friends, customers, and vendors before formalizing the effort into OpenFX Ventures.
Among the first disclosed bets: Jeeves, which raised $110 million in September, and Cyclops, which raised $20 million in July. Both Miami-based companies use stablecoins in their growing international businesses, the Refresh Miami report notes. Shah also appeared as an individual angel investor in Jeeves' funding round, according to FinTech Futures, alongside other angels including Zach Abrams of Bridge and Open Standard and Sean Neville of Circle and Catena.
What OpenFX Ventures Is Looking For
In a news release announced earlier this month, OpenFX said the new fund would partner with early-stage founders across the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and APAC, as detailed in a release distributed via GlobeNewswire. The fund is targeting innovators building credit on the blockchain, routing and clearing infrastructure, and AI-native payment operations, among other next-generation applications. The release states that OpenFX has already invested in a robust portfolio of fast-growing firms and is now seeking additional founders to back.
OpenFX itself launched in 2024 to modernize cross-border foreign-exchange transfers using stablecoin-powered, near-instant transfers, and the company says it serves customers moving money internationally around the clock. It raised a $94 million Series A round in March, backed by Accel, Atomico, Lightspeed Faction, and other investors, per the same Refresh Miami account. The company says it now serves more than 100 fintechs across the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and APAC, and has grown to more than $80 billion in annualized transaction volume in under two years, according to the GlobeNewswire release — though OpenFX's own blog post announcing its Series A separately stated the company moves over $45 billion a year across borders in real time.
Brickell Office, Global Team
OpenFX's physical footprint in South Florida includes a 3,500-square-foot office at Brickell City Tower in downtown Miami, which serves as its U.S. headquarters. The company employs more than 15 people in South Florida and plans to add staff there as it expands, the outlet reports — a figure that contrasts with OpenFX's own blog post, which stated the company has hired 105 people across four continents. Shah has said OpenFX works with teams in Miami, Mexico City, Montevideo, Sao Paulo, London, Barcelona, Bangalore, and Bangkok, among other locations, and has written that the best founders are distributed beyond concentrated access and capital.
On the size of individual checks, Shah has framed the relationship with portfolio founders as more important than the dollar figure itself. Harrison Mann leads OpenFX's go-to-market efforts from Miami, while Tyler McIntyre joined the company to lead its newer multi-currency accounts business — a product line OpenFX says it expanded into after moving from pure cross-border payments into business banking accounts.
A Disputed Acquisition in the Background
That multi-currency accounts push traces back to a deal OpenFX announced in summer 2026, when it said in a release distributed via GlobeNewswire that it had acquired Miami-based Global Ledger, with terms not disclosed. Global Ledger has pushed back directly on that characterization. In an official statement posted to its blog, the company said: “Global Ledger has not been acquired by OpenFX, and no transaction between the two companies has taken place.” The two accounts remain in direct conflict, and neither company's dispute has been resolved by a third party.
Stablecoins Reshaping the Payments Landscape
OpenFX's venture push lands amid a broader surge of stablecoin-focused payments startups. Stablecoin market capitalization has grown 137% since 2024, reaching nearly $310 billion, according to data from DefiLlama cited by Fortune. Cyclops, one of OpenFX's disclosed investments, sells an all-in-one infrastructure platform to payments companies that bundles crypto and stablecoin services, according to the same Fortune report on its $20 million Series A round. Jeeves, meanwhile, told FinTech Futures that $1.5 billion in annualized platform volume is now coming from its stablecoin business, its fastest-growing segment, with total platform volume for card and payment products exceeding $5 billion.
Elsewhere in the sector, other players are chasing similar ground. Verda Ventures has raised $40 million to purchase minority stakes in about two dozen stablecoin companies globally, while Rain has collected roughly $338 million in equity investments and MassPay now processes tens of billions of dollars annually, with about 10% of that volume moving in stablecoins, according to Payments Dive. For Miami's fintech corridor, OpenFX's bet is a wager that backing its neighbors now could pay off as the stablecoin payments race accelerates.
