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KAST, a Singapore-based financial platform built on stablecoin rails, has secured $80 million in Series A funding, valuing the company at $600 million just 18 months after launch, Bloomberg has reported. 

The round was co-led by QED Investors and Left Lane Capital, with returning investors Peak XV Partners, HSG and DST Global Partners also participating. The raise is one of the largest early-stage rounds in stablecoin payments to date, and arrives as institutional appetite for digital-dollar infrastructure reaches a new high.

KAST was founded by Raagulan Pathy, a former Circle executive, and is positioning itself as a neobank built for a globally mobile, digitally native user base that demands faster and more flexible financial tools than traditional banking can offer. The platform already serves more than one million users and processes nearly $5 billion in annualized transaction volume.

Both revenue and user numbers are expanding at roughly 15 to 20 percent month-on-month, with revenue doubling since the end of September 2025. The company expects to hit a $100 million annual revenue run rate by year-end.

The fundraise lands against a backdrop of surging stablecoin adoption. According to Artemis Analytics, global stablecoin transaction volume climbed 72% last year to more than $33 trillion — surpassing the combined on-chain settlement volumes of major global card networks, a threshold investors are increasingly reading as a structural shift rather than a cyclical one.

Pathy said the fresh capital will fund expansion across North America, Latin America and the Middle East, alongside licensing, compliance and headcount growth. KAST has already hired more than 250 employees, with talent from Stripe, Revolut, Binance, Circle and Airwallex. 

Circle Internet Financial has had a remarkable 2026 – and Wall Street’s most bullish analyst on the USDC issuer is not done yet. Bernstein reiterated its “Outperform” rating on Circle’s shares this week with a price target of $190, implying roughly 60% additional upside from the stock’s current level near $120. 

Since bottoming near $50 a share in early February, Circle’s stock has more than doubled, closing Tuesday at $118.17 and giving the company a market capitalization of approximately $30 billion. Circle shares are now up about 49% year to date, outperforming a flat S&P 500 and a roughly 1% decline in the Nasdaq 100 over the same period.

The thesis from Bernstein analysts, led by Gautam Chhugani, rests on a structural argument: stablecoins are no longer a creature of the crypto market cycle, and Circle is best positioned to benefit from what comes next. USDC supply has rebounded to just shy of a record $78 billion even as bitcoin and the broader crypto market remain well below their highs, while the total market for US dollar-backed stablecoins has held steady at around $270 billion throughout the crypto bear market. Adjusted stablecoin transaction volumes, the analysts noted, grew more than 90% year-over-year, with rising transaction velocity suggesting the tokens are increasingly used for real economic activity rather than crypto speculation.

Payments are the engine of that growth. Visa now supports more than 130 stablecoin-linked cards across 50 countries, processing roughly $4.6 billion in annualised settlement volume. Circle’s own payments network — which allows institutions to send USDC across borders and convert it into local currencies through banking partners — now covers corridors spanning the EU, Singapore, India, the Philippines, and the United States, with approximately 55 enrolled institutions and annualised volumes of $5.7 billion as of February 2026.

The longer-term growth driver that Bernstein finds most compelling is less familiar: AI-powered agentic finance. As autonomous software agents increasingly transact online, stablecoins could serve as the natural payment rail for machine-to-machine micropayments, covering everything from API calls to automated digital services. 

To capture that opportunity, Circle is building Arc, a high-throughput blockchain designed for fast, low-cost transactions at scale. The timeline for commercialization remains undefined, but Bernstein views it as a credible long-term catalyst that the market has not yet fully priced in.

The regulatory backdrop has also shifted in Circle’s favour. The GENIUS Act, which passed in 2025, established a federal framework for stablecoins, setting standards for reserve backing, disclosures, and oversight — removing a layer of legal uncertainty that had historically weighed on the sector. 

Bernstein analysts described Circle as “a long-term category winner,” citing its regulatory positioning, exchange partnerships, and expanding global payments infrastructure.

With stablecoins increasingly embedded in mainstream financial infrastructure and a macro environment that may yet turn more favourable, the argument that Circle’s rally has further to run is one that more than a few institutional investors appear willing to entertain.