TechFlow news — On December 12, according to TechCrunch, HongShan (formerly Sequoia China) and Peak XV (formerly Sequoia India), both spun off from Sequoia Capital, co-led a $10 million seed funding round in KAST, a stablecoin payments platform. KAST is a bank-like platform built on stablecoins that enables users to hold and use stablecoins through traditional payment channels. It also offers credit card services compatible with standard merchant networks, allowing users to spend their stablecoin assets at merchants that do not natively support cryptocurrency payments.
The platform was co-founded by Raagulan Pathy, former Head of Asia-Pacific at Circle, and Daniel Bertoli, former partner at Quona Capital, and primarily targets users in emerging markets, especially offshore workers. KAST reduces cross-border payment costs by bypassing traditional banking networks. Due to regulatory restrictions, it currently does not operate in China or India. DST Global and Goodwater Capital also participated in the round.
