Alpaca Banks $435 Million to Become the Backbone of Tokenized Stocks

Alpaca raises $135 million led by Peak XV

Crypto brokerage infrastructure firm Alpaca raised $135 million in equity funding on 16 July 2026, in a round led by venture firm Peak XV. Bay Area investor Elefund, BNP Paribas' Opera Tech Ventures, and London-based Unbound also joined, and the round drew both new and returning backers. San Mateo, California-based Alpaca provides application programming interfaces, or APIs, that let exchanges and platforms offer United States stocks on public blockchains. The new capital is earmarked for tokenized assets, institutional trading, and embedded investment services.

Debt financing lifts the total package to $435 million

The equity raise came with up to $300 million in debt financing, primarily from Payward, the parent company of exchange Kraken, and the Bank of Montreal (BMO). Together, equity and debt brought the combined package to $435 million. Alpaca's valuation passed $1 billion during the raise, though the company did not disclose a specific figure for this round. The debt financing made up the larger share of the total.

Alpaca clears most tokenized U.S. equities on-chain

Alpaca said it clears or custodies about 94% of tokenized U.S. equities and holds more than $1.5 billion in underlying stocks. The company stressed that regulated firms must still hold the real shares and process corporate actions behind each token. Its rails enable around-the-clock blockchain settlement of tokenized equities. The new funds target what Alpaca calls "agent-first" brokerage infrastructure for tokenized markets.

AI agents drive Alpaca's API usage growth

Alpaca links much of its recent growth to artificial intelligence (AI) agents plugged into its trading systems. The company reported that monthly active API users grew nearly four times in the six months to mid-2026. Bloomberg reported that Alpaca is also exploring an entry into prime brokerage, a service that lends cash and securities to trading firms. The firm has described its ambition as building the "AWS of finance," a reference to the cloud rails that other businesses build on.

Alpaca aims to be tokenized markets' default layer

Co-founder and chief executive Yoshi Yokokawa, a former Lehman Brothers executive, framed the company as core plumbing for a market moving on-chain. In a statement, Yokokawa said demand is growing for regulated infrastructure as tokenization reshapes access to global markets and AI creates new financial applications and participants.

"Alpaca is uniquely positioned to become the default infrastructure layer for tokenized global capital markets and AI-native financial services", 16 July 2026. — Yoshi Yokokawa, Co-founder and CEO, Alpaca

Round follows a $150 million Series D in January

The financing follows a $150 million Series D that Alpaca closed in January 2026 at a $1.15 billion valuation. The firm operates as a self-clearing broker-dealer. It offers trading in equities, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), options, fixed-income securities, and cryptocurrencies through its APIs. The back-to-back rounds point to fast demand for the plumbing behind tokenized and AI-driven trading.

Stablecoins anchor on-chain settlement for tokenized markets

Tokenized equities settle on public blockchains, where dollar stablecoins provide the cash leg. USD Coin (USDC) traded at $1.00 with a market capitalization near $73.2 billion at the time of publication (CoinPaprika, 17 July 2026). According to CoinDesk, the tokenized-equity market grew nearly 3,000% in 2025, reaching about $963 million by January 2026.