- Zebec has developed real-time settlement technology for cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.
- The upstart, built on the Solana blockchain, just raised $15 million.
- Zebec will use part of the funds to build a Solana debit card in partnership with Visa.
Some of the biggest names in crypto just backed a seven-month-old startup that wants to transform the way money moves on the blockchain.
Zebec has developed settlement technology on the Solana blockchain that enables the real-time movement of money between two parties.
The upstart announced Tuesday it raised a $15 million Series A led by Solana Ventures and Distributed Global with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Circle Ventures, and Coinbase, among others. Zebec has raised $21 million to date.
Settlements in traditional financial systems often involve intermediaries and can take days to process. Cryptocurrencies cut out the middle men with the use of smart contracts — self-executing contracts where buyer and seller terms are written into lines of code.
But settlement in crypto still only occurs on a one-time basis, Sam Thapaliya, CEO and founder of Zebec, told Insider. And for each transaction, a fluctuating fee must be paid to process and validate transactions on certain blockchains.
Zebec
Zebec’s tech is different in that it is a continuous money stream that enables people and companies to send and receive crypto in second-increments, Thapaliya said.
The startup’s first product — Zebec Pay — is a payroll offering that allows Solana-based companies to pay their employees by the second in USD Coin or other stablecoins, as opposed to once- or twice-a-month.
It’s similar to what’s known as earned wage access, where employees are able to draw on their wages between paychecks.
Employees can withdraw their balance from their crypto wallet and turn it into real-world cash. Or, they can put that crypto to work by earning a yield by investing in decentralized finance, similar to earning interest on money in a savings account.
“The concept is, if you’re able to receive your money faster, then you can compound faster,” Thapaliya said.
Zebec doesn’t charge a fee, but instead takes a percentage of the yield its users make. In the four weeks since launching the beta version of Zebec Pay, the number of end-consumers Zebec has is in the low-10,000s, Thapaliya said.
“If you make money, we make money and that’s the value because in the US there are 65 trillion paychecks processed every year, if we are able to just get yield from 1% of the accounts, then we are in line to be a very successful company,” Thapaliya said.
But Thapaliya has big plans for the underlying settlement tech that underpins Zebec Pay.
The startup, which was part of Visa’s Fintech Fast Track program that has seen the likes of Stripe, Chime, and Crypto.com, will work with the payments giant to launch a debit card on Solana.
Having a Visa debit card that sits on the Solana blockchain mitigates the need for people to move money between their crypto wallet and more traditional bank accounts, which can be cumbersome and costly, Thapaliya said.
The initiative with Visa, which is set to launch in the coming months, embeds Zebec further into the crypto
payments ecosystem
and helps the startup get more exposure to the end-consumer, which is its ultimate goal.