Alpaca Raises $50 Million Series B & Announces Crypto Offering

Alpaca, a commission-free stock brokerage platform that offers APIs for fintech apps to connect and trade in U.S. stocks, announced it has closed a $50 million Series B on the heels of driving 1500 percent year to date growth in brokerage accounts and expanding partnerships across Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, North and Latin Americas.

“By the end of the year, we’re going to see close to 100 global fintech apps built with our APIs go live with their stock trading platforms,” said Yoshi Yokokawa, Founder and CEO of Alpaca. “We’re unlocking the ability to invest in U.S. companies in places around the world that have never had this opportunity and through fintech partners that share our vision of democratizing investing.”

The fundraising round was led by Tribe Capital with participation from Horizons Ventures, Eldridge, and Positive Sum. Alpaca’s existing investors, Portage Ventures, Spark Capital, and Social Leverage, also participated in the round. Since its product launch in 2018, Alpaca has continued to accelerate worldwide growth and adoption of its developer APIs and is now expanding into cryptocurrency.

“Our modern financial system runs on antiquated rails. Alpaca has established itself as the go-to developer-first API for investing by providing an easier, cleaner, and more scalable alternative to what exists today,” said Arjun Sethi, Co-Founder, and Partner at Tribe Capital. “Its crypto launch is just the first of many product iterations that will allow global investors to access U.S. markets. We look forward to working with the company to scale its ambitious vision.”
Alpaca is excited to announce its soon-to-launch crypto product, expanding across asset classes from equities to cryptocurrencies as part of a multi-asset class strategy. Alpaca’s cryptocurrency product will be made available for both its retail consumers and B2B partners. Readying for a public crypto launch, Alpaca has partnered with global crypto leaders: Genesis, ErisX, and Silvergate. Customers will soon be able to buy, sell, hold, and trade cryptocurrencies via Alpaca’s developer-first APIs. Developers and traders are invited to join the Alpaca Crypto waitlist for alerts and early access to the public beta. For the most up-to-date information, join the Alpaca Crypto Beta Waitlist for more alerts and notifications.

“The growth and adoption of digital asset offerings amongst leading fintech firms like Alpaca is a key area of focus for Genesis,” said John Conneely, Vice President of Institutional Custody at Genesis. “We’re excited for Alpaca to roll out crypto offering to its customers with our initial support for digital asset custody and trading.”With the launch of Broker API just a few months ago, Alpaca has reported soaring growth with the number of funded brokerage accounts increasing more than 1500%, to over 100,000 total funded accounts. Alpaca Broker API enables fintech companies worldwide to build and launch commission-free stock trading apps by leveraging Alpaca’s comprehensive suite of developer APIs. Alpaca offers fractional shares through its app partners as well, allowing investors in any country to buy into the U.S. stock market for as little as $1. Alpaca has already established fintech partnerships across Europe, South East Asia, Africa, North and Latin Americas. Global partners who have already launched apps include Gotrade, Midas, Investore, Chaka, and Xantos Labs.

“Integrating with Alpaca Broker API allowed us to build and launch our app as we imagined,” said Rohit Mulani, Founder of GoTrade, a YCombinator startup. “Powered by Broker API, Gotrade can offer investors from more than 150 countries the ability to trade US stocks with as little as $1 — democratizing access for all.”Alpaca is also proud to announce a new partnership with Plaid, a data network powering the digital financial ecosystem, allowing Broker API partners the ability to simplify the account funding experience for their customers. Alpaca’s partnership with Plaid offers a seamless authentication and funding process and supports the acceleration and growth of new fintech startups and tech innovators.

“Account funding is a critical part of customer onboarding for fintech apps and crypto exchanges,” said Paul Williamson, Head of Revenue at Plaid. “Alpaca’s integration with Plaid will help companies streamline the account onboarding process for customers and improve funding success rates.”Alpaca has now raised a total of $72 million from investors. The company closed a $10 million Series A led by Portage Ventures last year. Alpaca also raised a $6 million seed round.