Caliza Launches in Brazil, Securing $5.3 Million to Enable Banks and Fintech Companies to Provide Their Customers Access to the U.S. Economy

Caliza, a startup that allows banks and fintech companies to embed its API infrastructure and offer customers the ability to save and transact in U.S. dollars, announced today its official launch in Brazil along with a $5.3 million seed round led by Better Tomorrow Ventures and Abstract Ventures with participation from Fontes by QED, Quona Capital, Valor Capital Group, and other notable investors. Using Caliza, banks and fintech companies will now be able to offer digital dollar accounts and real-time cross-border payments as well as embed fiat-to-crypto on and off ramps within their services, allowing customers to build wealth, send and receive payments in U.S. dollars, and exchange currency instantly.

In today’s market, consumers and business owners often face many barriers when attempting to access a global economy. Opening a U.S. dollar account outside the U.S. is too expensive or complex for financial institutions to make this service widely available to individuals or small businesses. In many cases, banks in local markets only provide U.S. dollar accounts for multinational corporations or private wealth clients with a certain threshold in deposits. As a result, Brazilian companies and individuals excluded from these global products pay a substantial premium for access to international merchants and services ranging from Amazon Web Services and Slack to Walmart and Apple. Caliza is looking to change this by becoming the first company to build infrastructure for a suite of compliance, banking, and payment services through USD Coin.

“National payment systems are improving rapidly with Central Banks launching real-time payment systems like Pix (Brazil), SPEI (Mexico), and UPI (India), among others, but there is still a large void in cross-border payments and banking. Caliza is looking to solve this problem so that everyone can thrive in a global economy. And today, we’re taking that first step in Brazil. As the future unfolds, we envision Caliza being the universal system that fuels the adoption of instant global transactions,” said Ezra Kebrab, founder and CEO of Caliza.

Kebrab’s inspiration to build Caliza came when he was at Visa, leading the company’s accelerator program designed to help fintech companies launch new payment solutions globally. During his time at Visa, Kebrab discovered how difficult it was for companies to break into other markets, primarily due to a lack of access to global accounts with banking credentials tied to the world’s reserve currency.

Behind the company is a team of experts who bring years of experience in regulatory compliance, scaling companies, and financial services. Chirag Shukla, Head of Legal and Compliance, was previously at Upstart and Silicon Valley Bank, where he helped both companies shape their compliance programs. Marcus McLaughlin leads the engineering team. Before joining Caliza, McLaughlin helped many early-stage companies, including Cloudera and Intuit, grow and build critical infrastructures. Guillermo Gonzalez Aguado, who was most recently at Nubank leading the company’s deposits and payments expansion efforts in Mexico, oversees Caliza’s banking product.

The company is currently offering its services in Brazil and plans to expand into Mexico by early 2024. Other countries across Africa and Southeast Asia are also part of Caliza’s roadmap. The funding will be used to grow the team and build additional financial services such as access to U.S. Treasury bills with on-demand liquidation capability and international credit cards

Better Tomorrow Ventures, who co-led the funding round with Abstract Ventures, believes the company will be an important component in bringing together a universal economy.

“I’m a strong believer in a future where borders are fluid and permeable, for both people and capital. And that allowing both to flow around the world more seamlessly can be a huge boon to reducing poverty and improving human outcomes globally. I see Caliza as a core piece of infrastructure to allow people all over the world, from all walks of life, to participate in U.S. economic dynamism and level the playing field,” said Jake Gibson, founding partner of Better Tomorrow Ventures.

The company is backed by Better Tomorrow Ventures, Abstract Ventures, Class 5 Global, Valor Capital Group, Quona Capital, Fontes by QED, Raba Capital, Rally Cap Ventures, and Digital Currency Group, along with founders and angel investors including GB Agboola (Flutterwave), Geoff Hayes (Compound), Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled (Chipper Cash), Diogo Mónica (Anchorage Digital), Ashton Braun (Silo), Misha Esipov (Nova Credit), Florian Hagenbuch, Mate Pencz and Andreas Scholten (Loft), Daniel Bilbao (Truora), Andres Bilbao (Rappi), Charles Delingpole (ComplyAdvantage), Michael Kent and Ricky Knox (Azimo), Michael Ovitz (CAA), Tikhon Bernstam (Parse), Jon Choi (Teleport), Jesse Ghansah (Float), Charles Naut (Rain), and more.