The Dollar Is the World's Best Product: Augustus Raised $180M to Distribute It

Uncharted territory. Where road maps are useless. Conditions don't negotiate. The terrain doesn't wait. Where opportunity abounds, but so does death. The builders who understand what's coming aren't mapping it. They're already climbing. Is incline.

Welcome in. Good to see you. Hello, guys. Good to see you. How are you doing? We are probably feeling a little more well, maybe you're maybe you're more energized than us. It's been a it's been a big week for you. We we're we're so excited to have you on, and thank you for taking the time given the news recently that just came out. How are you doing? For sure. No. I'm feeling the the kind of media tour right now, and there's a lot of buzz going on. How's it feel? Yeah. No.

We're we're we're always on, as we like to say, with with the bank. Right? No. Yeah. I I did I did TPN yesterday, which is, of course, the the normie

non stable coin version of this show. And now I'm excited to be here, guys. I'm feeling good. What would you

Yeah. Let's like it's funny because we're always like, yeah. He's on he he went on TBPN. Obviously, that's epic. What what did you not cover? Like, because I feel like TBPN is like yeah. They're they're more of a general audience, like, tech generally. We really do like to get into more of the, yeah, the technicalities or weeds.

I think a lot of the people who follow the show are active builders, operators, or or people that could either use Augustus as a partner or or a client, but also, like, just the industry specifically around modern money, I think, is kind of where we live. What what did what did you maybe not cover?

Or we'll we'll say that for the second question. Why don't you intro us to Augustus? And then I'm I'm curious, like We'll get there. What we what we missed on TPN or what you wish you could have gone deeper with. No. Totally right. So we always say Augustus is the global dollar bank. Right? With the with the thesis being that the dollar is the best product in the history of the world, and there's quite the infinite global demand for for dollars and especially outside of US.

And I think that's what the the the the work we've seen in stablecoins has been an expression of that. Right? That dollar is the best price of the world and distribution is broken. Right? So historically, banks have been doing a shitty job of distributing these dollars, and it's been historically very hard to access them outside of The US. Right? And I I think that if you think about the legacy distribution of the dollar for the clearing bank model, that has always been a of a broad model.

And to to make matters worse, corresponding bank tier relationships have been trained down into the riots for the last twenty years. So the idea of August was today, just to to build a modern clearing bank. Right? And and build a full stack next gen dollar clearer that can provide high quality dollar access to non US financial institutions, fintechs, banks. And so I think, like, we we we didn't go as deep into the what we do for customers with TPN. Right?

But we we serve fintechs, many stablecoin fintechs, many crypto companies, but also, you know, traditional fintechs and banks with high quality dollar accounts, correspondent accounts, FBO accounts, named virtual accounts for first and third party payments, and the full thing. And I think the interesting thing about the about us is that we do it for our own national bank. Right? So we we actually pay the dollars ourselves at the fair reserve, and so we have full control over what's happening.

And I think you can you can improve many things if you if you if you build from scratch. I love that. The dollar is the world's greatest product. There's so much demand. It's really interesting. I think it's true. I mean, some people some smart people have said water or something like that. So I think you can it's not such Christianity. I mean, you can argue these things, but this is certainly one of the most impressive mass adopted products in the world.

And and I think it's one of these products where despite it being such a global commodity, supply and demand are still mismatched.

And I think that's usually then the case because distribution is somewhat flawed. Right? And I think August, of course, tries to fix that. Well, it's interesting to use the analogy. I'm thinking about if you were if you were to try to limit water or even Christianity or another religion from from a regulatory standpoint or something, which might happen with the role to dollarize the world. There might be some folks who say, actually, we'd like to stay on our on our own currency.

Usually, when you try to limit that and you persecute persecute a a a religious belief, it just flourishes all the more. People would find a way to get water. They'd find a way to get God if the government said no. So they'll probably find a way to get dollars. Seems like maybe you're helping with that. Yeah. Totally. I think one of the big macro beliefs that Augustus is that I think we have, like, 160 currencies today in the world, and I think it should be much closer to 16. Right?

And I think many of these many of these small local currencies are are bad products. Right? And I'm a I'm a capitalist at heart, and I believe the best product will win against all odds. But I I think many of these microcurrencies are bad products that are forced

on their users. Right? I think, like, what about what about the Uzbekistanis sum? Right? Like, who's who's who's doing it? Who's doing who's that for? Right? Like, who's benefiting from from that? I think, essentially, it's only local governments that wanted to exercise some sort of con control of a a statistical economic monetary policy, whereas the people and the consumers, they want dollars. Right?

And then as you said, like, they they will get dollars, and they've gotten them through USDT and, I mean, USDC in the past. And I think that that's that's totally fair, and these rates have emerged as like an like a compelling solution, but why not also give them the real dollars. Right? And why not why not fix that part of the stack as well? I love it. Can you speak a little bit to the OCC conditional

approval, why it matters, why because it's it seems like just sitting sitting and owning this part of the stack is so paramount. What why is this so important for you guys to be pursuing an OCC charter? And what, yeah, what what advantage in the on the clearing side does that give you versus

others who who don't have that? Yeah. Totally. I mean, so I think if you really un unpack it. Right? I people want dollars. It's hard to get dollars. I think that the the global money stack has kind of emerged as as an answer to that, that that being maybe a company like Bridge or something like that that then provides kind of, like, virtual accounts or stay with kind of an off ramp to to to global fintechs. And I think that has been tremendously successful proposition. Right?

And it's really struck a nerve because the dollar is the best parent in history of the world, people want it. Right? And the these companies have built something that people want. But at the same time, it's a bit of a complicated stack. Right? Usually, it's a fintech that's on top of that that's on top of a partner bank, and the partner bank oftentimes doesn't even clear their own payments at the Fed, and so they may be working with JPMorgan. And so it's a bit of a layer cake already.

And whenever you have these complex layered structures, there's friction. Right? And and it's very hard to really, like, execute and deliver on a consistent frictionless technology vision and platform if you're not in control of the full stack. And frankly, I think the most important part of the stack sits at the very bottom. Right? It sits at the Federal Reserve. In your Fed Master account, we actually move and hold the dollars that you're then distributing for these global dollar accounts.

And and, historically, it's been quite impossible to get there. Right? For a technology team, a fintech team, it it just it just was not possible. And I I I think the the the interesting insight we have, Augustus, that maybe one and a half years ago or so was that might be somewhat possible again. Right? And might be hard and, like, a super expensive and a massive pain, but maybe there's a world where we can get a US national charter, and we can actually pull it off. Right?

And so for last year or so, two two years, we we were going through the motions. Right? And you hire the the the the the bank executives, and you you get the suit and the tie, and you go to DC a thousand times, and you do all of these things, and you you do them with great joy. I've I've been a big fan of the experience. And now as of two months ago, we we've received conditional approval for for the for the US National Bank. I think it's the the eighth conditional approval since 2010.

So it's still this very, very rare thing in terms of, like, full service. De Novo National Bank is everything. We've seen four go live since 2010, and so it's a Who's in that list roughly? Like, who are those in that list? So I think it was, like, Grasshopper, Vero, Erebor, and us. I think I'm missing one. But but the the these these were, I think, to go live since the global financial crisis.

And so it's and so as it was a thing that didn't happen, and we're, of course, very excited to know we're one of these few companies that can play and hopefully make make lives of Global Syndics easier because we can provide the full stack, vertically integrated global dollar platform. So bullish. Tell us a little bit about the

you you mentioned a little bit about the, like, the regulatory process that the journey that you went through there. I know formerly known Augustus formerly known as Ivy. Give us a little bit of the background of, like, a lot of folks are just because of this news, this fundraiser is massive, like, people are just not starting to get to know you a little bit. What would you what would be a shame if people didn't understand about the past? Seems like you've been building things.

This isn't like the first week of the business. Like, what would be a shame if we just glossed over? What what are you proud of, or what what should we not be thinking about? I I think we're reliable with euros. Right? And I think we're we're probably the best euro keeper in the in the world. And so Mhmm. What we what we're now doing with dollars, we've done successfully with with euros for for quite some time. Right? And we're regulating Europe,

and we we we clear on euro payments over them. And we serve many of the most impressive global fintechs,

businesses in the industry. And so that that's something that we've, of course, like, spent lots of time building out, and I think it's, like, pretty good product and that we're not building on, of course, with the dollar clearing. Right? But I think that can get lost in the noise a bit. Yeah. Drew referenced the the rebrand from Ivy to Augusta

or Augustus rather. Augustus. Augustus. Thank you. Is this a is this a nod to Caesar? Is this the Pax Romana, the the language, and the dollar that allows for a spread? What's what's the story behind Augustus here? The website's definitely beautiful and gives gives that vibe too. I mean, I just it's one of the coolest websites I've I've engaged with. It's absolutely stunning. Yeah. I appreciate it. Shout out to Sofia on our team who has who has built that.

Yeah. I I think I think it's a great website, honestly. Augustus, yeah, man. Like like, many thoughts on this, I've always been a big classics nerd. Right? For the longest time, I thought I was going to be a a Latin professor. I was I was, like, mega into it growing up. And so when we started this company, we called Ivy, I was like, okay.

This feels actually like a bit of a missed opportunity. I should have just gotten a classic related name. Right? And I always thought I was a bit bit annoyed by that. And so in part, it's just me, like, wanting to catch up on that. I do think August Too bad. I was really curious. We'll we'll get it back. Global dollar bank, programmable dollar, and so it it sounds like they started mainly with euro accounts.

I wanted to I wanted to double click into into that history and, like, kind of why that was the beginnings for them.

Yeah. We'll we'll let him finish the Augustus story, and then we'll jump to to euros and dollars. Excited to hear. I mean, it's just it it's wild to me. Like, a $180,000,000

series b. So this isn't this isn't a series a. This is series b, which makes sense. I lost the guys.

Okay. You were telling us classics, Latin, Augustus. Yeah. I think Augustus is yeah. Tutorily, Augustus is a really special historical figure where I think Augustus is the original underdog. Right? When Augustus was Mhmm. Heir, I I think there were 10 people in the Roman Empire that were objectively more likely to to win in the race for power. Right? And and and Augustus was 19 years old when he when he found himself in that position, and he still he still succeeded against all odds. Right?

I think in startups and in these venture type companies is what you want to do, succeed against all odds. And I think Augustus can be a real role model for for for these types of things. And then I I do think, and this is, like, historically, of course, inaccurate, but it's also true that Augustus can be can be described as the inventor of modern currency. Right? When Augustus came into power, every major province had their own coin. No one knew what was worth what.

And he had these Augustinian currency reforms where he centralized the mint and he centralized the coinage. And he kind of came up with what we still know today as, like, nationally unified

currency system. And, of course, the joke of Augustus, National Bank now is like, is money broken again? And do we need another one of these? And can can we can we do that? Perhaps. I love it. Fun to hear the backstory. I'll introduce you to another Classicist AI founder sometime soon. Please do. Since we're talking about kind of, like, Augustus and the maybe the underdog story and and the first headline I think I saw, Ferdinand, about the business was, like, a couple weeks ago.

It was, 25 year old raises this crazy thing. And it was, like, the age like, your age was the thing that was leading that headline. What do you what do you make of, like, the the the framing of that? Do you do you find that, like, that's been an advantage in this process? Is that something that you feel like like age doesn't really matter here? Like, has that been, like, an up a more of an uphill battle versus maybe founders who are raising series b's who are ten years ahead? Like, how does age play into this? Yeah.

It's interesting. Right? God bless America that you do these things. Right? I'm I'm I'm Germany Oh, yeah. And and God bless United States. Right? I I think I think in venture world and fundraising, it's fine. Right? Like, I think I think there's beauty to being a young founder. Right? I think you're there there's still all the upside.

I think, sure sure, if you're like a super accomplished individual, that's also good. But I think that that that archetype can can work. I think building a bank is probably a bit bit more unusual. Right? And I am I this is a I personally I I I love the brand. I've always wanted to to to be a banker. When I was a little kid, I I was I always played banker. My parents called me Scrooge McDuck. I was obsessed with the whole thing.

The business the the business of banking is just this incredibly aesthetic and important and meaningful business, and I I respect it a lot. I respect the people that have built it, that have operated in in in in regulated banking for a long time. And I think for me, it's just like an amazing experience. Right? And I love all about it. I think the regulators have been have been tough as they should, right, on all of these things. Right?

And you do these long interviews, and you you do field exams, and and they they they look into it. And I I I think I've I've studied up, and I I've been I've been doing my job. And then, of course, the most important thing in all of this is that we were able to to assemble this terrific executive team, right, which I think is quite complementary to what I can bring to the table. Right? We've hired people like Craig Qualls. He he was at the OCC for twenty years.

He was then the CEO of a number of federally chartered banks. He was CEO of Green Dot Bank and H and R Block Bank and United Texas Bank. We poached Benjamin Alexander. He was formerly chief compliance officer at Column Bank. And before that, he he led compliance for for HSBC's clearing business and and so on and so forth, brought none of these executives. And so I I do think that was a pretty consistent picture that that the regulators can really look at and and underwrite.

And and I do think, like, I think the provocative play on on this, like, young bank CEO thing is, like, is this where where people say, like, yeah, such a such a young bank CEO. Like, is is is this maybe a bad thing? Can can it go go wrong? I think it's I think, of course, banking has been run by by by old white men for for and I I I don't wanna be woke about it. But, like, so me as a young white man, I think bank is remember as old old old white men for for maybe less hundred years.

And and are the outcomes that amazing? I I don't know. Right? I I think every everyone is aligned that banks cannot do technology. Right? This is kind of like a law of nature. And I think if you kind of wanna wanna change a couple of these things, you might wanna build a stronger coll coalition between young and old people. Right? And experienced experienced banking executives and kind of the younger technology folks.

And and I I am a firm believer that technology, in the end, is is is incredibly additive to the world. Right? It can drive positive outcomes for businesses and, of course, for customers, can drive positive supervisory and regulatory outcomes because you can just do things better and you make less mistakes. And and and if you really wanna deliver on that promise of technology also in regulated banking, I think we should. I think you need to build these types of coalitions. Right?

And so I I I think there's actually a bit of truth in in that. I don't think it's that that that bad. Running with the technology side of things for a moment, Ferdinand, it's it's the bank for the AI era. We have this sort of AI agentic side of things.

Where does that fit into the vision for Augustus or maybe even the current reality for Augustus in terms of how AI is playing here, how technology broadly is enabling, accelerating,

automating the various aspects of running this bank that seems to be a little bit more AI native than what we would think of as a traditional bank. Yeah. This is on Since I think you have to, like like, differentiate a bit. So what we're not seeing is, like, a bunch of Vagantic Commerce stuff. Right? And we're very focused in terms of customers and the use cases. We're very focused on serving global fintechs, global banks with with high quality stable, connected dollar accounts. Right?

And but but but where we where we are seeing a bunch of opportunity and use case and application is in the bank's back office. Right? This idea that that banks are intensely operational businesses powered by tens of thousands of analysts in the wire room doing the busy work, doing the payment reconciliation, the ops, and so on and so forth. And the the the the kinda like the the deep truth that these are usually the people that make the bank a bad experience for customers. Right?

If a payment gets stuck, it's usually because an analyst is kind of reviewing it, and maybe he's out of office on the weekend or he's out of office after 5PM. And suddenly, you're stuck with the subpar customer experience of cutoff times and bank opening hours. And I do think there's a tremendous opportunity to say the marketing terms to to build a bank that runs itself, right, and to automate large chunks of the bank's back office through technology, and then, of course, through AI and at the fuzzy margins.

And I I I think it's incredibly hard for existing banks to do that in a compliant and effective manner. I think you really have to build the whole technology platform that the bank core from scratch and around these primitives to be able to to kind of deliver on it. And and so when we think about where we invest in technology, we always think about our core banking system, Marble, hence Augustus. That that is essentially that a system of action, a technology native bank core that that's built around intelligence.

And and we think it will be a real advantage, and we're seeing it be a real advantage in Europe already in our ability to deliver on on on on

on these customer experiences. What what are some specific examples of, like, marble break like, marble in the practical instance of what what it can do that wasn't possible before or what would have taken

a lot of time or money or effort? Like, what what are some, like, clear tactical examples of why this is superior and what this unlocks that was not possible before? I love I love the game too, Marble. That's great. Yeah. I I I think I look. I think as as a simple example, something like like the payment option reconciliation. Right? Someone asked, where's my payment? And then maybe in a traditional bank's back office, people would, like, look into the Excel file.

God do God forbid, they're looking they're looking into, like, like a physical spreadsheet or, some sort of, like, stack of of documents. Whereas I think it with with Marvel and in AI, of course, like, an analyst can ask the bank, where's this payment? Right? And ask it in natural language. It can interact and it can kind of have a conversation with the bank's court to then do its job much more efficiently and help the customer out much much faster. Who right now are you wanting to onboard

to to Augustus? Like, who like, what like, is this is this a Yeah. Product that could be used for are you mainly focusing right now on the infrastructure side of this, equipping other companies to go embed this type of these types of solutions internally? Or, like, could a company like us go and sign up for this? No.

Yeah. Yes. If and if you have, like, a bunch of deposits, we'll we'll take it. But, no, I think the core the the core customer type that we're going after are are are really global syntax. Right? So we're thinking crypto exchanges, OTC desk, cross border stablecoin companies, stablecoin neo banks, traditional neo banks, especially those that have a emerging market focus or global money focus. Right?

We're real specialist for these kinds of use cases, and I I generally believe we can do them better than anyone else and that these have been the customers that we've been signing up at at scale and that we've been serving very successfully and that we wanna continue to to grow with. Yeah. If if this was thinking about the raise, the size of it, the opportunity ahead of you, what how are you thinking about deploying that capital strategically?

What what is next for the firm? How are you thinking about the future? Yeah.

I think I think broadly speaking, there are there are three areas where I wanna invest into. I'm gonna say, I think first, the bank. Right? We're gonna capitalize the bank, and we're going to continue to hire world class bank executives and bank talent to run it. Number two, Marvel. Right? Our AI enabled core banking system, which is the technology foundation for all of the good work that we're doing and that we hope to continue to to be doing. Right? And so that that's essentially engineering investments. Right?

And I think half of the company is for engineering today, and we expect that to to to to stay that way. Right? And I think it's a real in a weird way, it's something really unique to be to be a bank that can also do technology. Right, and that can actually build build their core platform from scratch around all the things that are possible today. And so that's number two, Marble. And then number three is go to market. Right? And we wanna be where where our customers are.

We wanna, like, serve the best fintechs all around the world. We wanna serve fintechs in Latin America. We wanna serve fintechs in Africa, The Middle East, Southeast Asia, and, of course, we wanna serve fintechs in Europe and The US as well. And so we're going to kinda scale that go to market a bit. How do how do you approach go to market?

Is this is this hiring, like, local

localized talent? Is this I mean, for for an opportunity size of this large, how do you even approach stabbing that problem effectively? I'm I'm actually hiring our first direct salesperson in our New York City office right now. So if anyone's listening and excited to to have a conversation, please send me a note. I think my my my my ex handle is here. Or or go go go to augustus.com. Mhmm.

So that that that that's something that I so so I think for for this role, really, intelligence and grit and hunger over everything. Right? So I'm I'm actually super open to the the the the non sales background profile. If you have a couple of years of sales experience, that's also great. But I I think people I I cannot deal with, like, the jaded sales professional type profile. Right?

It has to be, like, someone who's, like, gen genuinely has a certain, like, child like naivety and joy in, like, bringing this product to market, right, and being entrepreneurial about it and growing a company. And so and so so that's what we're thinking about specifically. Right? And if you know someone, we'll pay you 25 k if you if you refer the person to me, that that's a priority. And then, yes, we're, like, also hiring a low more localized teams on the ground in these specific markets. That's awesome.

I have someone in mind for you

offline. I'm happy to share. Okay, man. I know I know we've taken up a lot of your time here. Any final thoughts before we go? Thank you again for for bringing us in a little bit how you're thinking about this and extremely extremely excited for the future that's ahead. The opportunity is big and the approach you're taking.

And, again, this the the layer of the stack that you're sitting in, it just seems like you you the approach, the timing, the brand, the go to market, the the war chest you have with you, like, all of the pieces are there to just completely run it. Yeah. It's time to build. Yeah.

It's time to build. Here we go. It's it's it's time to build on Augustus. No. Thanks, guys. This was fun. I hope we see you soon.