Money moves quickly until it has to cross borders. Yet, stablecoins can, in theory, fix this by enabling near-instant, low-cost settlement, but most institutions struggle to access them in a compliant way under Europe’s tightening rules.
Nodu, a London-based stablecoin infrastructure startup with Latvian roots, aims to change that. It is building a MiCA-aligned alternative to US-focused providers such as Zerohash and Bridge, giving European institutions a native option for programmable money.
The company has raised a $1.45 million pre-seed round led by Digital Space Ventures, an early backer of Revolut and PaySend, to pursue its plan to connect more than 170 countries into a single payment network, with stablecoins acting as the bridge between currencies and systems.
Making digital assets fit cleanly inside traditional finance
Nodu was founded in 2025 by CEO Alex Novozhenov, CTO Vladislav Nikolayev and co-founder Daria Dubinina. The trio previously built Crassula, a European fintech platform that processed hundreds of billions of euros in payments for more than 150 clients over the past decade.
While growing Crassula, they repeatedly encountered the same problem: banks and fintechs wanted to participate in the digital-asset economy but faced complex technology, unclear regulations, and heavy compliance overhead.
Nodu’s platform provides banks, payment service providers, and fintechs with a prebuilt compliance and payments framework for stablecoins. Clients can send, receive and hold stablecoins much like traditional money, while checks such as KYC, AML and regulatory reporting run automatically in the background.
Instead of building their own crypto stack or applying for new licences, institutions can integrate with Nodu’s APIs and merge fiat and blockchain rails into a single regulated flow that links European players to global payment and blockchain networks. A key feature is Nodu’s off-ramp, which supports fiat payouts in more than 100 countries.
The company positions itself as a European counterpart to US stablecoin infrastructure firms like Zerohash and Bridge, but with MiCA alignment, EU-first compliance and a focus on banks and regulated fintechs rather than purely crypto-native platforms.
What’s next?
The new funding will be used to extend global coverage, hire more engineers and compliance specialists, and deepen relationships with banks and fintechs that are under pressure to digitalise and find new revenue streams from digital assets.
“The world is shifting toward digital money and programmable finance, and regulations like MiCA are bringing clarity to the market. By 2030, most major currencies are evxpected to exist in stablecoin form. Banks, PSPs, and fintechs are now looking for reliable partners to bridge fiat and stablecoin ecosystems — and Nodu is building the rails that will move the industry forward. That’s why we’re proud to support them,” said Andrei Popov, Managing Partner of Digital Space Ventures.
