According to EU-Startups, London-based stablecoin infrastructure startup Nodu has closed a €1.25 million pre-Seed funding round. The investment was led by Luxembourg’s Digital Space Ventures, a notable early backer of Revolut and PaySend. The company was founded in 2025 by Alex Novozhenov, Vladislav Nikolayev, and Daria Dubinina, who previously built the European fintech platform Crassula. Nodu is explicitly positioning itself as the European alternative to US-based giants like Zerohash and Bridge. The fresh capital will be used to expand global coverage, grow engineering and compliance teams, and strengthen partnerships with banks and FinTechs.
Nodu’s B2B Play
Here’s the thing: everyone talks about stablecoins revolutionizing payments, but the actual plumbing for businesses is still a nightmare. That’s the gap Nodu is trying to fill. They’re not going after consumers; they’re selling the picks and shovels to banks, payment service providers, and other fintechs who want to offer stablecoin services but don’t want to build the compliance and technical backend from scratch. Their revenue model—transaction fees and subscriptions on a B2B2B/B2B2C basis—makes sense if they can get enough institutions plugged into their rails. It’s a classic infrastructure play: be the boring, essential layer everyone relies on.
Why The Timing Matters
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. The founders are smart to highlight regulations like Europe’s MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) framework. That regulation is basically giving institutional players the rulebook they’ve been waiting for. So when a VC like Digital Space Ventures says MiCA is “bringing clarity,” what they really mean is it’s de-risking the investment. Banks are now actively looking for partners, not just dabbling. Nodu’s timing seems to be about hitting the market just as that institutional curiosity turns into a procurement checklist. But can a small, new team out-execute and out-sell the well-funded US competitors already knocking on Europe’s door? That’s the billion-euro question.
The Real Hurdle
Nodu’s vision of connecting 170 countries through a stablecoin network is… ambitious. Let’s be real. Their claimed differentiator—stablecoin off-ramps in over 100 countries for instant fiat payouts—is a huge technical and regulatory challenge if it’s truly seamless. That’s the holy grail. Moving value on-chain is the (relatively) easy part; getting local currency in and out of the traditional banking system globally is the brutal part. That’s where their plan to grow compliance teams is critical. If they can actually make that “invisible, automatic” infrastructure work, they’ve got a winner. But it’s a massive “if.” For now, they’ve got some funding, a clear niche, and a regulatory tailwind. That’s a solid start. You can check out their platform at nodu.fi.
