San Francisco, CA, USA, November 10th, 2026 — Chainwire

Alta, a financial infrastructure company building the foundation for the next generation of global finance, today announced it has raised $80 million in total funding, comprising a $47.5 million Series A round and $32.5 million in previously raised seed financing. The Series A was led by Index Ventures, with participation from GV (Google Ventures), Blackbird Ventures, Square Peg, and Capital 49.

The new capital will advance the company's institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure, which is built for privacy, compliance, and global connectivity.

Infrastructure Built for Regulated Finance

Alta is developing institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure that enables financial assets and products to move instantly, globally, and programmatically. Unlike existing infrastructure designed primarily for crypto-native applications, the platform is intended to meet the privacy, compliance, neutrality, and operational requirements of regulated financial institutions while supporting transactions across assets, chains, and jurisdictions. Its launch comes as regulatory clarity improves and institutional demand for tokenized finance accelerates. For banks and other supervised institutions, that distinction carries weight in daily operations, since they answer to client-confidentiality obligations, know-your-customer requirements, and audit standards that existing crypto infrastructure was not built around.

"Existing blockchains aren't designed for the privacy and compliance requirements of global financial institutions," said Loong Wang, Co-Founder and CEO of Alta. "We're taking a fundamentally different approach, building privacy, programmable compliance, and identity and authorization directly into the blockchain. This will enable money and assets to move instantly, globally, and securely, whether it's a bank settling a transaction or an AI agent making a payment."

A $4 Trillion Inefficiency

Today's global financial system remains fragmented and carries significant inefficiencies. Cross-border payments can take days to settle, and institutions must hold substantial cash buffers to maintain liquidity across jurisdictions and payment networks. An estimated $4 trillion is tied up in prefunded accounts globally — capital parked in advance across destination jurisdictions so payments can clear, sitting idle rather than earning yield or funding operations while it waits.

Alta is building a more efficient system that combines instant settlement with global payment connectivity, foreign exchange, and treasury management capabilities.

At the core of the company's technology is a new blockchain architecture built on recursive zero-knowledge cryptography. The design allows institutions to keep balances, transactions, identities, and compliance policies private while still verifying that transactions meet the required rules. Designed to operate across assets, chains, and jurisdictions, Alta pairs programmable compliance with the controls and scalability needed for institutional finance and agentic commerce.

"Technology alone won't be enough to modernize global finance. Financial institutions need infrastructure they can trust, with clear controls over who they're transacting with, where money can move, and how sensitive information is protected," said Catherine Porter, Co-Founder and President of Alta. "As AI agents increasingly make financial decisions and execute transactions, that trust becomes even more critical. Privacy, compliance, and accountability just aren't barriers to innovation – they're what will allow it to scale."

Airwallex Signs On as Design Partner

Leading financial platform Airwallex has chosen to build on Alta, connecting its global payments infrastructure with Alta's blockchain technology. In addition to pay-ins and pay-outs via stablecoins, the collaboration will support connectivity to local fiat payment networks across 200 countries and 90 currencies. Alta is designed as neutral infrastructure on which banks, payment providers, and other financial institutions can build. Design partnerships of this kind allow an infrastructure builder to refine its platform against a lead customer's live requirements before opening it to the broader market.

Alta's first product will help businesses manage liquidity more efficiently and reduce the cash buffers tied up in prefunded accounts. Built on tokenized assets, the product will enable just-in-time funding, more efficient foreign exchange, and the ability for businesses to instantly move in and out of yield-bearing tokenized assets, maximizing the interest earned on otherwise idle capital.

"With the rise of agentic banking and programmable payments, stablecoins are becoming an important vector for settlement. Financial institutions need blockchain infrastructure that is private, neutral, regulated, and connected to global fiat rails. Alta is building exactly that," said Jack Zhang, Co-Founder of Alta and Co-Founder/CEO of Airwallex. "We're proud to be an early design partner and help Alta deliver onchain finance at institutional scale."

Backed by Leading Global Investors

Alta's investors bring together expertise across financial technology, enterprise infrastructure, and blockchain innovation.

"Loong is the sort of technologist you only meet a few times in a career. After a major fintech exit from his first company, he went on to run the largest supercomputing calculation in history at its time, then discovered a cancer drug now in human trials. With Catherine's exceptional track record of bringing industry leaders to the table and Jack's understanding of the problem space, this is a team we had to back," said Jan Hammer, Partner at Index Ventures.

"The Alta founders have successfully built and scaled multi-billion-dollar technology and financial infrastructure businesses, and understand how to de-risk complex institutional execution. We have been impressed with their combination of deep-tech blockchain engineering, institutional go-to-market knowledge, and vision for scale, and we look forward to supporting them in their mission to reimagine financial infrastructure at its core," said Tom Hulme, Managing Partner at GV.

The new funding will support continued development of Alta's blockchain infrastructure, expansion of its institutional partnerships and global financial connectivity, and growth of its engineering and compliance teams. With product, partnerships, and hiring all part of that stated plan, the observable checkpoints ahead are the launch of Alta's first liquidity-management product, the Airwallex integration extending across its 200-country, 90-currency coverage, and recruiting against the engineering and compliance expansion.

About Alta

Alta is building global financial infrastructure for the future of tokenized finance. Combining an institutional-grade blockchain with global payments connectivity, foreign exchange, and treasury capabilities, Alta is creating the foundation for a more efficient, private, compliant, and connected global financial system. Learn more at alta.finance.

Media Contact: Bridgett Frey – bridgett@dowling-group.com