Akshay Naheta is reportedly negotiating the sale of a minority stake in his stablecoin payments startup, with plans to use the proceeds for market expansion.
Akshay Naheta, the former SoftBank executive behind some of the company’s biggest deals, is reportedly in preliminary talks to sell a minority stake in the stablecoin payments startup he co-founded, Bloomberg has learned. citing sources close to the matter.
Distributed Technologies Research, which uses blockchain to process stablecoins for cross-border payments, would use the funds to expand into new markets, including the United States, according to the sources. The scale of the first public fundraising and valuation is unclear at this stage as it is negotiating with several strategic investors and venture capital firms, according to the sources.
A DTR spokesperson said the company offers payment and payment facilities in over 40 countries, which will be expanded to over 100 countries next year, with billions of dollars of transactions flowing through it.
The move comes months after fintech giant Stripe revealed a $1.1 billion deal to acquire stablecoin startup Bridge. Meanwhile, stablecoin payments company BVNK, backed by Tiger Global Management, is also in early talks to raise $50 million as interest in the sector increases.
A former trader at Deutsche Bank AG, Naheta played a central role in some of SoftBank’s biggest deals, Bloomberg notes, adding that he advised founder Masayoshi Son on the sale of chip designer Arm Holdings to semi-conductor designer Nvidia drivers and that he had also led a $4 billion investment in Nvidia. in 2017, making $3 billion in profits.
Naheta co-founded DTR in 2022 alongside a group of finance veterans, including Jason Griffith, former global head of equities at Jefferies Financial Group Inc, and Hasan Sabri, former COO of SB Management Ltd., according to information published on its website.
