Startale Group announced that it has closed a $63 million Series A round, adding $50 million from SBI Group to a $13 million first close from the Sony Innovation Fund in January.
The Singapore-based company, which operates in Japan, creates blockchain tools for financial companies and individual users. Its products include Strium, a blockchain for tokenized securities and other real-world assets, the yen stablecoin JPYSC, the dollar stablecoin USDSC, and the Startale app, a consumer application linked to the Sony-backed layer 2 network, Soneium.
The financing brings together Startale’s two most important strategic partners, the company said. SBI worked with the company on Strium and JPYSC, while Sony supported Startale through its investment arm and its work on Soneium.
This cycle reflects Startale’s desire to leverage multiple layers of the blockchain economy, from financial infrastructure and settlement tools to end-user applications.
Startale said it will use the funding to scale Strium for tokenized securities and real-world asset trading, expand adoption of JPYSC and USDSC, and develop the Startale app into a broader platform for on-chain asset management, payments, and services to become a “SuperApp.”
CEO Sota Watanabe said the company will also use the funding to promote tokenized stocks linked to Japanese stocks and expand the adoption of the yen stablecoin this year.
The round comes as Japan works to test how blockchain systems can connect to existing financial infrastructure. Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said earlier this year that she fully supports the integration of cryptocurrency trading into the country’s exchanges.
