Reserve Trust is a technology company.
Reserve Trust has raised $31.0M across 1 funding round.
Reserve Trust has raised $31.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Reserve Trust has raised $31.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Reserve Trust's investors include Cometa, Digital Currency Group, January Ventures, Kaszek Ventures, Lakestar, QED Investors, Tiger Global Management, Claire Diaz-Ortiz, Greg Kidd, Mandeep Singh.
# Reserve Trust: A Fintech Trust Company Reshaping B2B Payments
Reserve Trust is a fintech trust company that provides B2B payment infrastructure, enabling software companies and payment platforms to embed real-time, compliant payment and banking services directly into their applications[1]. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado, the company serves a $22 trillion global payments market by offering financial infrastructure as a service that removes traditional banking intermediaries[1].
The company's core mission is to democratize access to payment rails that were historically restricted to banks. Rather than building another fintech that relies on partner banks, Reserve Trust obtained a state trust company charter with direct Federal Reserve access—a regulatory achievement that took approximately three years to accomplish[6]. This positions the company to serve payment companies, fintechs, and money service businesses that struggle to maintain banking relationships or face slow, expensive implementations when embedding high-value payments[6].
Reserve Trust emerged from the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. After the crisis, U.S. banks underwent "derisking," shedding businesses with weaker risk-return profiles—including the handling of U.S. dollar payments, particularly in emerging markets[6]. Rather than start a traditional bank, founders Dennis Gingold and Justin Guilder navigated uncharted regulatory territory to create something unprecedented: a state-chartered trust company with a Federal Reserve master account[6].
The company achieved this regulatory milestone in 2018 and began providing U.S. dollar custody and payment services to fintechs worldwide[6]. The founding team brought deep expertise in cloud infrastructure—CEO Dave Wright and COO Dave Cahill previously built SolidFire, a cloud storage pioneer acquired by NetApp, applying those same cloud-scale principles to payments infrastructure[8].
Reserve Trust operates at a foundational layer of financial infrastructure that most fintech investors overlook. While companies like Stripe revolutionized payments for merchants, Reserve Trust addresses a deeper problem: the lack of direct access to U.S. payment rails for B2B and cross-border payment platforms[8].
The company rides several converging trends. First, the derisking of emerging market payments by traditional banks created a structural gap that fintechs cannot fill without infrastructure partners. Second, the rise of embedded finance—where payments are woven into software workflows—requires low-latency, high-reliability infrastructure that legacy banking cannot provide[1]. Third, the $22 trillion global payments market remains fragmented and inefficient, creating massive addressable opportunity[1].
Reserve Trust's regulatory achievement also signals a broader shift: fintech infrastructure is moving from working *around* the banking system to working *within* it at a more fundamental level. By securing direct Federal Reserve access, the company demonstrates that innovation in financial infrastructure doesn't require disrupting banking—it requires reimagining how to participate in it[8].
Reserve Trust raised $30.5 million in Series A funding led by QED Investors, with participation from FinTech Collective and Ardent Venture Partners[7]. However, according to CB Insights, the company's status is listed as "Series A | Dead," and the platform notes that "Reserve Trust ceased operations"[4]—a significant contradiction that suggests the company may have encountered challenges or pivoted its operations after the Series A round.
If Reserve Trust remains operational, its trajectory depends on capturing market share among payment platforms, remittance companies, and fintechs seeking direct Federal Reserve access. The addressable market is substantial—potentially $25 trillion in B2B payments volume[8]—but execution requires navigating complex regulatory relationships and competing against both traditional banks and well-funded fintech infrastructure companies.
The company's long-term influence will hinge on whether its regulatory innovation becomes a template for other fintech infrastructure players or remains a singular achievement. Either way, Reserve Trust demonstrated that the future of payments infrastructure lies not in replacing banks, but in accessing the payment system more directly—a lesson that will shape how financial infrastructure evolves over the next decade.
Reserve Trust has raised $31.0M across 1 funding round. Most recently, it raised $31.0M Series A in August 2021.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 1, 2021 | $31.0M Series A | Cometa, Digital Currency Group, January Ventures, Kaszek Ventures, Lakestar, QED Investors, Tiger Global Management, Claire Diaz-Ortiz, Greg Kidd, Mandeep Singh |