Tribal Credit raises $40M in ‘hybrid’ debt round funded by dollars and stablecoins

The company is pushing new use cases for blockchain payments through its partnerships with Bitso and Stellar Development Foundation.

Crypto-focused enterprise payment platform Tribal Credit has concluded a $40 million debt offering that was funded through fiat and stablecoins — giving the company additional capital to expand its business services in Latin America.

The so-called hybrid debt round was financed by Partners for Growth, a California-based investment firm, and Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), which is a non-profit organization supporting the growth of the Stellar blockchain. Tribal said it will use the capital to fund receivables from its customer base throughout Latin America, particularly Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru.

Tribal COO Duane Good explained to Cointelegraph that funding receivables from its customer base means that “Tribal can use the debt facility to help customers” in the aforementioned countries. In other words, “this new debt facility will be used to support our customer’s spending on the Tribal platform.”

When asked about the mechanics of the hybrid debt raise, Good explained that “a portion of the debt facility was established with SDF and funded through USDC.” A traditional debt facility, by contrast, “is an agreement with insittutiional lenders that enables a financial services firm to draw on the facility to support the underlying credit needs of their portfiolio.”

Launched in 2016, Tribal Credit provides credit cards and other forms of funding to startups in emerging markets. The company also employs a cross-border payment system supported by cryptocurrency exchange Bitso that allows businesses to convert local currency to Stellar’s USDC stablecoin. Integration with Stellar blockchain began in April 2021 after Tribal received $3 million from the Stellar Development Foundation.

“Mexico could be another example of a country adopting cryptocurrencies for remittances, as estimates have shown they could reduce costs by 50% to 90%.” – @ashady, CEO of Tribal. For more information, visit: https://t.co/g0oa3GvzZ4 #TribalCredit

— Tribal Credit (@TribalCredit) October 22, 2021

Tribal and others have identified small businesses as a major source of growth for crypto payments and remittances, especially in emerging markets where access to traditional financial services is often limited. Data from the World Bank shows that small- and medium-sized enterprises in emerging markets create roughly seven out of 10 jobs, making their access to financing more important.