Huma Finance, the first Payment Financing (PayFi) network, has raised $38 million in a funding round led by Distributed Global. The round saw participation from significant investors, including HashKey Capital, Folius Ventures, and the Stellar Development Foundation. TIBAS Ventures, the investment arm of Turkey’s largest private bank, Isbank, also contributed. A portion of the funding also came through investments in high-yield real-world assets (RWA) on the platform.
Announcing $38M in funding to hyper-scale our PayFi Network! This round fuels our mission to transform global payment financing.
Read more: https://t.co/4veDkOaRz8 pic.twitter.com/plCVeZFORJ— Huma Finance 🟣 (@humafinance) September 11, 2024
Global Liquidity Crisis
According to a report on Wednesday, the need for payment financing is immense, with trillions of dollars moving through credit cards, trade finance, and remittances. However, traditional financial institutions struggle to meet the demand, creating a liquidity gap. Huma’s PayFi network aims to address this by shifting real-world payment volumes to blockchain and stablecoins.
Payments with Blockchain
Fundamentally, Huma creates PayFi as an open, modular, decentralized platform. Such structure enables it to integrate the advantages of blockchain with real finance. As co-founder Richard Liu stated, the network could change global payment systems. Currently, stablecoins process $2 trillion per annum, and PayFi is meant to drive faster growth in the payment space.
Earlier this year, Huma merged with Arf, a global leader in on-demand liquidity. The partnership has already processed $1.8 billion in transactions and would reach $10 billion by next year. This makes Huma one of the fastest-growing networks using Circle’s USDC for payment financing.
Solana Holds $120 Support, Signals Bullish Rebound Potential
The Stellar Development Foundation invested $10 million into Huma as part of this round. Huma plans to integrate with both the Stellar and Solana blockchains. Denelle Dixon, CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation, praised PayFi’s ability to move money quickly and efficiently across borders. This aligns with Stellar’s focus on cross-border payments.
Solana Backs PayFi’s Vision
The Solana Foundation has also invested in Huma. Lily Liu, Solana’s President, pointed out that PayFi provided a new type of financial solution. She noted that on-chain finance helps create new financial products.
Huma intends to create an ecosystem through the implementation of the Huma Foundation for its PayFi network. This would expand global access and contribute to the organization’s mission. Furthermore, Huma is slated to host the PayFi Summit in Singapore for the first time on September 17th. This event will further partner with the Stellar and Solana Foundations for advancement in the evolving PayFi market.
