Reserve Trust finalises $30.5m series A and executive appointments

Reserve Trust describes itself as the first fintech trust company with a US Federal Reserve master account

Reserve Trust has raised $30.5 million in a series A funding round.

QED Investors led the series A round, with participation from FinTech Collective and Ardent Venture Partners.

The round, including $17.9 million in secondary shares, comes in addition to a prior $5 million seed round raised in October 2019. As part of the investment, QED’s Matt Burton and Ardent’s Phil Bronner have joined the company’s board.

Reserve Trust describes itself as the first fintech trust company with a US Federal Reserve master account.

This grants it direct access to Federal Reserve clearing, payment, and settlement services, positioning the company, which is free of legacy banking systems, as a payment and custody partner for B2B payment companies and fintechs in the US and abroad that have previously only been able to obtain these services from correspondent and sponsor banks.

According to Reserve Trust, its unique trust structure allows customers to store funds in custody accounts that are backed by its Federal Reserve master account, and to transfer funds via ACH, FedWire, SWIFT, and other emerging payment systems.

Alongside the fundraise, the company also appointed Dave Wright as chief executive officer and Dave Cahill as chief operating officer.

Reserve Trust says the appointments reunite two tech entrepreneurs that have collectively been involved in founding, building, and scaling multiple startups with four successful exits between them.

Their appointments come as Reserve Trust embarks on its next phase of growth. They were last together on the executive team at SolidFire, a cloud storage company founded by Wright and then sold to NetApp in 2016.

Reserve Trust says this latest capital infusion will be used to accelerate investments in the team and technology required to deliver innovative new services, APIs, and payment rails that support embedded and real-time payments for any fintech service or software platform globally.

‘No fintech that can offer direct integration with the US payment system’

QED Investors partner Amias Gerety comments: “Despite all the excitement around digital payments and infrastructure, there is still no fintech that can offer direct integration with the US payment system.”

“With Reserve Trust, we are creating foundational infrastructure to hold and move payments globally and at scale. Dave Wright and the team bring a track record of immense value creation and a history of being at the forefront of infrastructure innovation that is essential to unlocking capabilities for innovators in B2B payments.”

Wright adds: “While banks will always have an important role to play in B2B commerce, they have struggled to deliver the technology and services that businesses need to fully digitise domestic and international payments.”

“Reserve Trust’s unique combination of a trust charter with a Federal Reserve master account allows us to create foundational payment and custody services delivered via APIs to enable innovation across the entire fintech ecosystem. The funding announced today, including leading investors across the fintech ecosystem, will go a long way to helping us continue to execute on this vision.”

Image: Shutterstock

Mark Dugdale