Num Finance Raises $1.5M, Will Expand Stablecoins in Latin America, Middle East

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Num Finance has raised $1.5 million in a funding round and will expand its stablecoin offerings in Latin America and Middle East, the firm announced Tuesday in a press release.

Investors in the protocol’s pre-seed round include stablecoin developer Reserve, along with digital asset investor H2O Scouter Fund, the Argentine crypto firm Ripio’s venture arm, decentralized venture fund VC3 DAO and Matias Woloski, chief technology officer of Auth0.

Num Finance says it will expand its stablecoin offerings with tokens pegged to the Brazilian real, Colombian peso, Mexican peso and Bahrain dinar within the next month. It will also focus on growing its real-world asset offering, starting with tokenization of money market financial instruments, the press release added.

The protocol’s expansion comes as stablecoins, a $130 billion subset of digital assets, are increasingly in demand in emerging regions with frail financial systems such as Latin America or Turkey. People use these tokens as a means of sending remittances and storing value, crypto research firm Chainalysis reported.

Read more: Stablecoins Gain Traction as Inflationary Shield in Latin America With Growth in Europe

Stablecoins anchor their price to an external asset, usually to a government-issued fiat currency, and allow cheaper and faster transactions using blockchain technology. Despite its growing adoption in developing countries, U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoins dominate the market, representing roughly 99% of the combined supply, according to CoinGecko data.

Num Finance offers collateralized loans in local currency stablecoins to businesses in emerging markets, historically underserved by traditional financial institutions with limited credit availability. The protocol currently issues Argentine peso and Peruvian sol stablecoins.