HIFI

Host Brian McCullough opens with HiFi CEO Zach Walsh’s analogy to the New York Stock Exchange’s 1968 Wednesday closures, when back offices needed a day to process paper certificates. The eventual fix was infrastructure: centralizing certificates in what became DTCC. Walsh used the story to position HiFi similarly—as infrastructure connecting bank rails, stablecoins, and tokenized securities. Founded in New York in 2022 by Walsh and Mo Fifi, HiFi announced a $37 million Series A led by Left Lane Capital, with managing partner Matthew Miller joining the board.

HiFi says this was its first priced round, despite claiming more than $7 billion in annualized volume; no valuation was disclosed. VentureBurn reported participation from Antler, Arcanum Capital, Exit Fund, and Side Door Ventures. A September 3 SEC Form D for HiFi Bridge Inc. showed a $27.3 million equity offering, of which $21.8 million had been sold to 24 investors beginning August 19. The company apparently completed the remaining amount through earlier or subsequent closes, reaching the announced $37 million total.

HiFi’s core product is one API through which businesses can access USD virtual accounts, instant RTP payouts, push-to-card payouts, and direct stablecoin minting and redemption. The company is registered as a money services business and says it works with banking partners rather than replacing them. It charges fees on transaction volume. HiFi reports more than $7 billion in annualized processing, payouts to 87 countries, customer usage up more than fourfold in six months, and platforms built on HiFi serving over 10,000 businesses and 200,000 individual users.

HiFi says Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo is rebuilding cash-management and trading operations on its rails; Dapper is using the platform for digital marketplaces, while a rival bank uses it for stablecoin payment features. On July 15, HiFi participated in DTCC production trades involving more than 30 firms, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Nasdaq. The tests covered Treasuries, repo, equities, securities lending, and collateral workflows. HiFi also supported a live Tradeweb repo between DRW and Marex on Canton, with USDCX as the cash leg, enabling atomic delivery versus payment.

HiFi’s Visa partnership initially provides stablecoin push-to-card payouts through Visa Direct: businesses holding USDC can convert it and send funds to more than four billion eligible Visa debit and credit cards worldwide. HiFi also connects to Circle’s USDC-based Payments Network. The company says payments, card spending, and capital-markets settlement are fundamentally the same problem because value should move and settle simultaneously, rather than moving first and settling days later. Funding will support regulatory licenses, New York and international hiring, and expansion into cards and capital markets.

The episode places HiFi in a stablecoin market whose total dollar-pegged supply exceeds $295 billion, with USDT at about $183 billion and USDC near $76 billion. Competitors include Stripe-owned Bridge, Circle, BVNK, Zero Hash, Fireblocks, banks, and Visa itself. McCullough sees tokenized Treasuries and repo as HiFi’s potential distinction because institutional collateral workflows may be stickier than ordinary cross-border payments. Risks include expensive licensing, uncertainty around the founder-reported $7 billion volume, and partners such as Visa or Circle becoming direct competitors.