Fun has secured $72 million to expand the crypto payments plumbing that helps users move money in and out of modern apps. The startup, led by Alex Fine, is betting that back-end payment infrastructure will matter more as more platforms handle both digital assets and cash.
Funding backed by major crypto and tech investors
The Series A was led by Multicoin Capital and SignalFire, and it closed in late January. Moreover, investors included Infinity Ventures, Pharsalus Capital, and Tinder cofounder Justin Mateen. Fine did not disclose the valuation. The round followed a previously unannounced $3.9 million seed round raised in 2022.
Fine said the company focuses on a simple problem: helping money enter and leave an app without friction. However, he argued that this part of finance is often overlooked, even though it sits at the center of the user experience. “If you have a money app, a finance app, how do you actually get the money in and out?” he said.
How Fun positions itself in the market
Over the past year, Meta, Stripe, and Shopify have added crypto payments to their platforms as regulation shifted under President Donald Trump‘s administration. Fun expects more non-crypto companies to follow. That said, the startup does not move tokens directly itself. Instead, it uses third-party providers to handle transfers between different tokens and currencies.
Fun is building a business around letting users on those platforms move between digital assets and fiat currency, including the U.S. dollar, without needing a crypto exchange or bank. In practice, the company offers the infrastructure that makes these flows possible for firms that want to accept crypto payments without rebuilding their own systems.
The company was founded in 2022, after Fine dropped out of Stanford University in 2020 and spent two years testing startup ideas. He said he chose the name Fun because it sounded iconoclastic and because he already owned the fun.xyz domain and the @fun handle on X. “Everyone remembers the name,” he said.
A business built on rails, not headlines
Fine is 26 years old and believes blockchains will replace older financial databases and filing cabinets over time. Moreover, he said that many trillions of assets still live in databases or on paper today. Over the next 20 years, he expects those assets to move onchain.
The company works directly with a customer’s engineers to create the rails needed for deposits and withdrawals. It already processes more than $18 billion in yearly payments volume and built deposit infrastructure for Polymarket, Lighter, and Aave. Those clients rely on Fun for the kind of crypto deposit infrastructure that can support scale.
Spencer Applebaum, a general partner at Multicoin, said the company is well positioned as fintechs and neobanks adopt tokens and stablecoins. He said Fun could provide the same service to non-crypto native companies over time. That view points to a broader market for blockchain payment rails and other crypto payments solutions.
Fine said Fun has more than 20 clients, but he declined to disclose revenue or profitability. However, he said the new capital will help expand a staff of almost 30 employees. “We really want to be the front door for this new economy,” he said.
Fun’s latest fundraising shows how investor appetite for infrastructure remains strong as companies look for faster ways to move between crypto and cash. In a market still building its payments backbone, the startup is positioning itself as a quiet but central provider.