Alpaca, the San Mateo-based fintech startup behind an API-driven brokerage infrastructure, has raised $52 million in Series C funding to expand its international presence and product suite.
The round includes both new and returning investors such as Derayah Financial, 850 Management, National Investments Company Kuwait, Unbound, and Portage Ventures.
This latest raise brings Alpaca’s total funding to $170 million.
Breaking Down Global Barriers to U.S. Markets
Alpaca provides the backend infrastructure that powers trading platforms—think of it as the invisible engine behind apps that let consumers buy and sell U.S. stocks. The company now supports more than 5 million brokerage accounts and works with over 200 financial institutions across 40 countries.
Its platform enables fintechs and financial services companies to offer U.S. stock trading without having to build the regulatory and operational backbone themselves.
“This funding is a catalyst for us to go from U.S.-anchored infrastructure to truly global infrastructure,” said Yoshi Yokokawa, co-founder and CEO.
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Going Global—with the Licenses to Match
With the new capital, the company plans to:
- Expand into the Middle East, Europe, and Asia
- Obtain regulatory licenses in new jurisdictions (beyond the U.S., Japan, and the Bahamas)
- Add support for non-U.S. equities, including European and Asian stocks
- Enable 24/5 trading for U.S. markets
Alpaca also recently opened a New York office as part of its expansion strategy.
The Power Behind Embedded Investing
Founded by Yokokawa, a former investment banker, and Hitoshi Harada, Alpaca originally launched in 2018 to allow developers to embed investing features into fintech platforms. Since then, it’s added support for ETFs, options, fixed income, and high-yield USD products—including IRA accounts.
Alpaca recently partnered with Kraken, enabling the crypto exchange’s users in select U.S. states to trade stocks and ETFs.
Since its last raise in late 2023, the company says it has:
- Tripled revenue and assets under custody
- Quadrupled trading volume
- Become a fully self-clearing broker-dealer, handling clearing and settlement in-house via DTCC membership
Competing with Legacy Giants
Yokokawa views Interactive Brokers as Alpaca’s closest rival, given their global footprint. But where Interactive Brokers has legacy roots (founded in 1978), Alpaca is building for a modern, developer-first financial ecosystem.
“New banks want to offer modern experiences—and that’s where we win,” Yokokawa said. “They prefer infrastructure built today, not 20 years ago.”
With a distributed team of 200 employees, Alpaca operates remotely across the globe, continuing to expand its infrastructure and partnerships to democratize global access to U.S. financial markets.
As demand grows for seamless investing experiences across borders, Alpaca is becoming the go-to backend for next-gen trading platforms—bridging local apps with global markets, one API at a time. precision manufacturing at scale—without the delays, cost, or complexity of the past.
