Paradigm has led a $9 million Series A in El Dorado, a Latin American cross-border payments app founded in 2022 by Latin American immigrants who lived the problem firsthand. Coinbase Ventures and Verda Ventures co-invested. The company already claims over 100,000 active users, more than 5 million transactions processed, and operations across 12 countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Ecuador.
Why it matters
Paradigm partner Ricardo de Arruda framed LatAm cross-border flows as one of the most underserved opportunities in global finance, pegging the market at well over $100 billion a year. CEO Guillermo Goncalvez puts the addressable number closer to $1 trillion annually, with roughly 60% of that being purely B2B — imports and exports, not retail remittances. The under-served slice, in his telling, is the internal corridors: Brazil–Bolivia is already El Dorado's busiest lane, and bigger fintechs like Nubank and Wise are not focused on places like Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, and Peru. That gap is the wedge.
Market impact
El Dorado's B2B push is built on Tempo, the Layer 1 blockchain incubated by Paradigm and Stripe, and the company says it has already onboarded 100+ business clients, with the dominant use case being electric vehicle imports from China. The product wraps multi-sig, multi-organization structures around both stablecoin and fiat rails inside a single app. For Paradigm, the read-through is portfolio synergy — Tempo gets a real payments anchor in the region, and El Dorado gets the distribution rails of a chain purpose-built for money movement. The $9M figure is modest, but the corridor thesis and the Tempo integration are what the round is actually pricing.
Frequently asked questions
-
What is El Dorado and what does the company do?
El Dorado is a Latin American cross-border payments app founded in 2022 by Latin American immigrants. It serves retail and business users moving money across borders in 12 LatAm countries, combining stablecoin and fiat rails inside a single application.
-
How much did El Dorado raise and who led the round?
Paradigm led a $9 million Series A announced Monday. Coinbase Ventures and Verda Ventures participated alongside Paradigm as co-investors.
-
Why is LatAm cross-border payments considered an opportunity?
Paradigm partner Ricardo de Arruda put LatAm cross-border flows at over $100 billion annually, while El Dorado CEO Guillermo Goncalvez pegs the broader market closer to $1 trillion per year, with roughly 60% being B2B imports and exports.
-
What corridors is El Dorado focused on?
El Dorado's busiest corridor today is Brazil–Bolivia, and the company is targeting underserved internal LatAm lanes in countries like Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, and Peru, where bigger fintechs like Nubank and Wise are not focused.
-
What role does Tempo play in El Dorado's product?
El Dorado's new B2B payments service is built on Tempo, the Layer 1 blockchain incubated by Paradigm and Stripe. The product combines multi-sig and multi-organization structures with stablecoin and fiat rails in one application.
TheBlock