Tether joins $39 million funding round in 'programmable' Pave Bank

Tether Investments invested in a $39 million Series A funding round, which will be used to scale Pave Bank, the "world’s first programmable bank built for digital assets and AI era," according to a statement from Thursday.

"The global financial system is moving towards regulated on-chain finance, and institutions need a trusted bridge between the old and the new," Pave Bank co-founder and CEO Salim Dhanani said in a statement. "We have built a multi-asset bank that merges the stability and prudential oversight of traditional finance with the automation, speed, and intelligence of digital assets."

Pave Bank bills itself as a commercial bank designed to service clients who have needs across both fiat and digital assets. The bank, which has a license in Georgia, said it will use the capital to "expand its regulatory footprint, accelerate product development, continue to build institutional grade infrastructure and scale its client coverage across global markets."

Tether, which is cash-rich thanks to its overwhelmingly profitable stablecoin business, has a diverse investment portfolio that includes "payment infrastructure, renewable energy, Bitcoin, agriculture, artificial intelligence, and tokenization." Pave Bank's Series A was led by Accel and also included the participation of Wintermute, Quona Capital, Helios Digital Ventures, among others.

"Pave’s programmable, full-reserve approach combines the best of traditional banking and digital assets and has the potential to catalyze widespread adoption of stablecoins, deepening financial inclusion across markets," said Quona Capital's Ganesh Rengaswamy.