Innerworks, an emerging fintech and digital asset infrastructure startup, has secured $4,000,000 in seed funding, backed by an impressive roster of investors including AlbionVC, Digital Currency Group, Founders Capital, Firestreak Ventures (Walter Kortschak), NVTBL Ventures, Metaversal Ventures, Checkout.com, Apple, Coinbase, Citi, UBS, and Crypto.com.

The raise highlights Innerworks’ ambition to become a critical bridge between traditional finance and the fast-growing world of digital assets, enabling institutions to scale securely and compliantly in a rapidly evolving landscape.

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Who Is Innerworks?

Founded by Oliver Quie, Oscar Hayek, and Tom Ryan, Innerworks is building enterprise-grade infrastructure that simplifies how institutions connect to and interact with the digital finance ecosystem. Its tools focus on compliance-first architecture, interoperability, and robust security, ensuring banks, fintechs, and crypto companies can deploy digital solutions with confidence.

In practice, Innerworks is working on the “connective rails” that financial institutions need to integrate blockchain and digital asset products into their legacy systems - helping them transition smoothly into the digital-first era.

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Why This Funding Matters Now

The digital finance sector is expanding at an extraordinary pace. The global digital assets market is forecast to grow from $59 billion in 2024 to over $200 billion by 2030, fueled by rising institutional participation. Meanwhile, the blockchain in finance market is projected to grow at more than 60% CAGR through 2030, as both banks and fintechs adopt tokenized assets, stablecoins, and blockchain-based settlement systems.

But growth brings complexity. Financial institutions are under pressure to innovate quickly while navigating global regulatory frameworks, customer trust, and operational risks. This is where Innerworks is carving its place - providing the rails that let incumbents adopt new technologies without having to rebuild their entire infrastructure.

And here’s where the insight for founders becomes clear: the companies that endure aren’t usually the ones chasing hype - they’re the ones building what everyone else relies on. Stripe didn’t become a giant by being the flashiest fintech app, but by solving the messy, invisible problem of payment processing. Plaid isn’t a consumer brand, but it unlocked an entire ecosystem by giving developers seamless access to bank data. Innerworks is taking a similar path in digital assets: by embedding itself as the infrastructure layer, it doesn’t need to win the consumer - it needs to make itself indispensable to the businesses serving them. For founders, the lesson is sharp: focus less on being seen, and more on being necessary.

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How Innerworks Will Use the $4M

With the new funding, Innerworks will:

• Advance product development, building out APIs and compliance solutions for enterprise integration.
  
• Strengthen security and regulatory features, ensuring its infrastructure is ready for global standards.
  
• Expand partnerships, deepening ties with banks, payment networks, and blockchain providers.
  
• Grow its team, hiring engineers and business development leaders to accelerate go-to-market.
  

This strategy ensures Innerworks can scale rapidly while retaining credibility with the heavily regulated institutions it serves.

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Investor Confidence in Innerworks

The caliber of Innerworks’ backers underscores its potential. Global powerhouses like Coinbase, Citi, UBS, Crypto.com, and Apple provide both validation and strategic reach, while firms such as AlbionVC and Digital Currency Group bring expertise in scaling fintech and crypto infrastructure. The combination of TradFi, Big Tech, and crypto-native investors highlights the central role Innerworks is expected to play in the future of finance.

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Market Outlook: Bridging TradFi and Digital Assets

• Cross-border payments - worth more than $156 trillion annually - are increasingly adopting blockchain-based rails for speed and cost efficiency.
  
• Stablecoins processed over $7 trillion in on-chain volume in 2023, rivaling global card networks.
  
• 74% of institutional investors believe digital assets will be a permanent fixture in portfolios by 2030.
  

As the lines between traditional finance and digital assets blur, the demand for compliance-ready, enterprise-grade infrastructure like Innerworks is becoming essential.

Competitive Edge

Innerworks stands apart with:

• Enterprise-first design, focusing on banks, fintechs, and institutions.
  
• Compliance-first infrastructure, built with regulators in mind.
  
• Interoperability, bridging old and new systems.
  
• A powerful investor network, spanning Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the crypto economy.
  

This blend of credibility and capability allows Innerworks to scale faster and build trust with some of the world’s most risk-sensitive organizations.

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What’s Next for Innerworks

With $4M in seed funding, Innerworks will focus on product expansion, international partnerships, and scaling adoption among banks and fintechs. Its long-term vision is to become the default infrastructure layer for digital assets - powering everything from tokenized payments to institutional crypto custody.

By solving the hard, unglamorous problems of compliance and integration, Innerworks isn’t just adapting to the future of money - it’s shaping it.

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