Paradigm has led a $9 million Series A financing round in the Latin American cross-border payment app El Dorado, according to reports from The Block. The funding round included participation from Coinbase Ventures and Verda Ventures, demonstrating strong institutional backing for the payments infrastructure company. El Dorado was founded in 2022 by Latin American immigrants with firsthand experience dealing with cross-border payments. As per Paradigm's June 15 announcement, the investment was made alongside Coinbase Ventures and Verda Ventures, with the firms backing El Dorado's effort to build payment infrastructure for cross-border transactions in Latin America.
The cross-border payment market in Latin America represents significant untapped potential, with over $100 billion moving across borders annually, as reported by The Block. According to El Dorado co-founder and CEO Guillermo Goncalvez, the actual market size is closer to $1 trillion per year when broader flows are considered, yet the region lacks effective payment infrastructure. 60% of cross-border volumes are purely B2B payments, primarily imports and exports, with the biggest underserved opportunity lying in internal corridors between countries like Brazil and Bolivia. The platform is targeting internal corridors like Brazil-Bolivia, often overlooked by traditional financial players, with the market largely driven by remittances and B2B trade payments from the US to Latin America. As noted by Paradigm's Ricardo de Arruda, the region handles more than $100 billion in annual cross-border payment volume but continues to rely on systems that are slow, expensive, and difficult to navigate.
El Dorado has achieved over 100,000 active users and has processed more than 5 million transactions, according to the company's statements to The Block. The platform currently operates in 12 countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador. The company has onboarded over 100 new business clients, with the main use case being importing electric vehicles from China. One of El Dorado's busiest routes today connects Brazil and Bolivia, a market Goncalvez said remains underserved despite strong commercial activity, with countries such as Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, and Peru receiving less attention from larger fintech providers including Nubank and Wise.
The company has launched a business unit designed to assist both Latin American businesses and multinational companies with cross-border payments. According to The Block, this new offering combines multi-sig and multi-organization structures that integrate stablecoin and fiat rails into a single application. El Dorado's business payments services are built on Tempo, the Layer 1 blockchain incubated by Paradigm and Stripe, with Josh Itzkovitz from Tempo noting that the platform allows any company worldwide to open business accounts without requiring a U.S. entity. The service has already facilitated transactions for over 100 companies, with imports of electric vehicles from China emerging as one of the most common use cases. The investment adds to Paradigm's growing activity outside traditional crypto venture funding, including backing manufacturing company SendCutSend in a $110 million funding round and partnering with Stripe on the Tempo blockchain network.
