Augustus raises $180M Series B at $1B valuation to build AI-native correspondent bank and dollarize the world

Speaker 1: know what feels great? Running a business on Shopify. Shopify is a commerce platform that grows with your business and lets you sell in seconds online, in store, on mobile, on social, on marketplaces, and now with AI agents. And we have our first guest of the show, Ferdinand Dabitz from Augustus. Let's warm up the show.

Speaker 2: He's back. We

Speaker 1: got some big news. You raised some money.

Speaker 8: Welcome back

Speaker 2: to You

Speaker 1: absolute the dog. How are you doing? Give us the update. What's going on with the business? What's the news?

Speaker 6: No. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm feeling good. I like this car stuff. By by the way, I have a 02/2009 Land Rover. There we go. Cool. Myself.

Speaker 1: That's a great car.

Speaker 6: So that's good. No longer for Gustus. Again, raised some money. I think one thing we always liked about the about the bank thing is that it felt so hard. Right? And was this like

Speaker 2: And now you're making it

Speaker 3: look easy.

Speaker 1: Yeah. You are making look easy.

Speaker 2: I wanted something that felt hard so I could make it look easy.

Speaker 6: To make it look effortless. Right?

Speaker 2: You are making it look effortless. I remember we when we hung out, I think it was at the end of last year

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: During during the holiday season. You were like, yeah. I'm working on this thing and here you are less than a year later.

Speaker 1: $180,000,000 series b, $1,000,000,000 valuation. Tiger Global's in. You got a bunch of other folks in. What actually did unlock the new round? Like, what's the progress of the core business?

Speaker 6: I think it's a great question. Right? I think there are these probably at least three three things that were and are still exciting about the business. Right? I think that the first thing is just this big idea around dollarization.

Speaker 3: Mhmm.

Speaker 6: Right? And Augustus is built to dollarize the world, and I think people have really started to understand that that's a super important thing. Right? And I think over the last twenty years, we've seen a trend towards dedollarization effectively. Right? Like, if you look at the distribution of the dollar globally, kinda like traditionally distributed through these clearing banks, these correspondent banks, that chart goes down into the right. Right? Like, the number of clearing banks has just just fallen fallen off year over year. And people were kind of, like, excited about it. Right? Because post nine eleven, people said, okay. It's, kind of risky to, like, distribute the dollar and be a bank in Latin America, be a bank in Middle East, be a bank in Africa. Like, you probably don't wanna do that, and and so so should be super expensive, and and and so on and so forth. People, like, from a macro point of view, start to regret that, and then feel like, okay. Actually, it's kind of great if people use the dollar all around the world. Right? I think it's it's it decreases dollar demand. Right? It's anti inflationary, and it's also this incredible instrument of soft power. Right? The first thing we do in Russia goes to Ukraine as we take them off SWIFT, and we shut off their dollar clearing, and this is amazing thing where we don't have to send the tanks and the the the boys. We can influence what's going on. Right? And so there was this, like, idea, like, Should we maybe, like, revert that trend and build a modern correspondent bank? Right? A modern dollar quieter that that that can dollarize the world, right, and provide high quality dollar access to places outside of United States? Mhmm. I think that was the first big idea that really made a lot of sense from a from a policy point of view. Right? I think it enabled us to charter this bank, but I think also, like, like, private private capital markets were able to buy buy buy into it. So I I think that was the the the the number one thing. I think then the second macro thing was this idea, AI bank. Right? If you now build a modern correspondent bank, what does that mean? I think so.

Speaker 2: I like the sound of it.

Speaker 1: I like

Speaker 2: the sound of it.

Speaker 6: I I think I think it kind of, like, it makes sense. Right? Like, I think the global economy is on this, like, consistent investment thesis to that that every major industry is going to be transformed by AI, and I think Augustus is genuinely one of the few assets companies that has exposure to doing that for banking. Right? Because Augustus is a bank itself, not yet conditionally approved, as you guys know, and is also kind of young enough and and cool enough to be a legitimate technology company. Mhmm. Right? And so we felt like the the the the felt was, like, legitimate opportunity to take this very operation intensive business, dollar clearing, correspondent banking, where Citibank has tens of thousands of analysts in the wire room that go for the payment file and do the reconciliation of payments and take it and just automate a bunch of it and turn to a better business for customers with with better economics. Right? And so so that that that that that felt, I think, pretty good. And then I think the first thing was just the progress that the team has made over the last year or so. Right? We we got the US National Bank conditionally approved. Yeah. I think we're the eighth company in the history not in history of The United States. Eighth company since 2010, a younger history to to kinda, like, get get the conditional approval. That was a big one. And then we're already kinda big on euro clearing. Right? We scaled a clear a couple of billions of euros for some of the largest fintechs and FIs in the world, that business was also growing very fast. And so I think these things coming together felt like like a like a good moment and and kind of like resulted in that round, I'd say, my little play by play.

Speaker 1: Awesome. Do you have something?

Speaker 2: No. Go for it.

Speaker 1: How yeah. I mean, you mentioned that, like, we are on an upswing of dollarization right now, and that feels like a narrative violation because over the past two years, we've been in this period of deglobalization, tariffs. There's international conflicts. Like, I don't love it, but I could totally imagine a lot of international countries saying, well, we're gonna pull back from our relationship with The United States because they're, you know, levying tariffs all over the place and seem to be adopting an America first strategy. Like, is is what am I misreading about the international climate that's actually driving increased dollarization in 2026?

Speaker 6: Yeah. I think it's I think it's, like, less empirical as in this is actually happening and more, like, normative. Okay.

Speaker 8: Do we

Speaker 6: want this to happen?

Speaker 1: Sure.

Speaker 6: Right? And what what kind of world do we want to live in? Yep. And I think people are starting to come around to this idea that we wanna live in a dollarized world. Mhmm. And that wasn't always a a given. And I think it wasn't even a given for the last twenty years. As I said, like, 09/11, like, I think correspondent banking has been, like, increasingly unattractive business, and people say, stay away from banking non US financial institutions. Don't do it. And I think that the the wind is changing on that a bit. And then I do think that the administration is actually much keen on dollarization than people give them credit for. Right? I think all the work that the Trump admin is doing on on stablecoins, for example, it is largely driven by dollarization thesis. Right? This idea that if we can, like, more effectively distribute the dollar abroad, it's it's good for United States. Right? Because it's it's an instrument of soft power and increases dollar demand and it's anti inflationary. Right? And I think that they're, like like, that there's risk of thought in that, and that that's big on this. And I think that's in a way like a policy and, like, a byproduct of that as a the public private partnership that is a national bank. Right? It's not just a normal company. It has to live in these in these regulatory moments.

Speaker 1: Amazing. Well, congratulations. Keep up the great work. I'm sure

Speaker 2: Incredible update.

Speaker 1: Hearing from you in just a couple months at this pace. You're making it look easy.