Why We Invested In Fusepay
Reach out to Brett Calhoun, Managing Director & GP at Redbud VC, at brett@redbud.vc to learn about Redbud, and subscribe to our newsletter here.
💡 FusePay is a white label crypto payment solution for emerging market crypto exchanges, merchants, and consumers.
Investment Premise
While blockchain may continue to quickly replace many digital infrastructures, digital currencies will not become commonplace until they become more stable. Although paying for goods and services with crypto is currently possible through antiquated processes, and many crypto marketplaces offer pre-loaded debit cards that automatically convert the crypto to a legal tender, there remain many issues with these systems. The biggest issue with existing solutions is replicating a traditional payment infrastructure with debit cards and transaction fees. The current structure is not a sustainable, long-term solution for the $12B transferred daily across cryptocurrencies. Although crypto payments are complex, 20–25% of the 300M crypto users still use them for over $10.4B in purchases. Fusepay aims to accelerate the adoption of crypto payments, and the adoption of crypto in general, by making payments so simple that even boomers (broadly speaking) will understand.
In addition, Fusepay targets exchanges in third-world countries to build a network of exchanges to process payments. While crypto exchanges are often unsuccessful in first-world countries where large exchanges monopolize the market, crypto exchanges represent a potentially useful payment platform in emerging markets. The transparent infrastructure of a crypto exchange is one reason emerging markets, and their convoluted and highly regulated economic systems, are early adopters of digital currencies. With the proper infrastructure, crypto can change the financial system payment workflow. Although we are in a “crypto winter,” the market still believes crypto is either the future or will have a material stake in everyday transactions. For example, 75% of retailers expect the infrastructure to accept crypto transactions in the next 24 months, and two states soon wish to receive crypto for tax payments.
The current architecture for enterprise payments is highly complex, with multiple layers. Fusepay is simplifying it into one layer rather than 6+. It gives customers the power to convert any cryptocurrency into legal tender at the time of purchase. No pre-loaded debit card is needed.
Caleb Sirak, the Co-Founder of FusePay, has experience building blockchain infrastructures, starting in high school. As his initial idea has evolved into a crypto payments platform for emerging markets, Caleb has brought a supreme level of coachability, resourcefulness, and hunger to build something great. After meeting at Caltech, Caleb brought on Aaron Chew as the CTO & Co-Founder. Aaron previously worked on Bitcoin research at MIT and is ranked as one of the top 20 algorithmic programmers in the nation in the USA Computing Olympiad.
Redbud believes the Fusepay team can unlock the $2T of crypto used in everyday retail or commercial transactions.
Reach out to Brett Calhoun, Managing Director & GP at Redbud VC, at brett@redbud.vc to learn about Redbud, and subscribe to our newsletter here.
