Retail Sales Jump; Pillar Raises $20Mn; Mission Lane Seeks Charter

Retail sales jump. Pillar raises $20Mn. Wealth.com announces Series B. Latitude emerges from stealth. Mission Lane applies for charter. Repay rebuffs takeover offer.

Institutional crypto conversations have changed and the focus is no longer on proof‑of‑concepts, pilot programs, or theoretical use cases. The market has entered a production phase where crypto capabilities are expected to generate real volume, withstand regulatory scrutiny, and integrate cleanly into existing financial systems. Our VP of Crypto Product, Sai Kailash, explains in his newest Insights piece three implications that matter most for institutions building in digital assets today.

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Retail Sales Jump

U.S. retail sales jumped last month by 1.7%, the largest increase in a year, despite surging prices at the pump. March’s 1.7% increase follows a revised increase in retail sales of 0.7% in February. Retail sales data is not adjusted for inflation. While gas did help drive the March increase, a broad cross section of categories, including electronics and furniture, drove the increase. Analysts suggest bigger than normal income tax refunds may help explain the increase in March, though that also suggests the effect may be transitory.

Pillar Raises $20Mn

Pillar, founded by ex-Barclays and Coinbase employees, announced it has raised $20Mn in funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz. Analog Ventures, Neo, and Crucible have also invested in the company. Pillar leverages AI to automate currency and commodity hedging strategies, providing what the company describes as a “consolidated risk management hub.” Capabilities include data analysis, portfolio construction, execution, management, and accounting. CEO Ramesh explained in a LinkedIn post, “Hedging is still manual, fragmented, and often inaccessible - leaving companies exposed at precisely the wrong time. Pillar is built for this new reality. We’ve developed an AI-powered hedging platform that connects directly to real-world exposures and manages risk continuously - from strategy to execution to optimisation.”

Wealth.com Announces Series B

In other fundraise news, Wealth.com announced it has raised a $65Mn Series B. Investors include Google Ventures, Citi Ventures, 53 Stations, Anthos Capital, Charles Schwab, Alumni Ventures, and others. The funding brings Wealth.com’s total raised to date to approximately $110Mn. The company offers AI-powered estate and tax planning services. The new funding is intended to support the company’s product development, including via strategic acquisitions, and to grow its U.S. distribution. The company says its AI engine, dubbed Ester Intelligence, processed more than 100,000 documents last year and that it has seen a more than 600% increase year-over-year in use of AI-powered workflows.

Latitude Emerges from Stealth

Latitude, a cross-border payment infrastructure startup, has emerged from stealth and announced it has raised $8Mn in seed funding. The round was led by NEA. Founded by vets of Uber and Stripe, Latitude has built “proprietary” fiat-to-stablecoin rails, enabling it to facilitate payments to more than 50 markets via a single API. The company’s “Latitude Liquidity Network” enables U.S. businesses to send payments to international recipients in local currencies for a flat 0.5% fee. Latitude CEO Cyril Matthew told Fintech Futures, “Latitude was founded to fix a persistent problem in global commerce: moving money across borders is still slow, expensive, and complex. After building payments and stablecoin products at Uber, Coinbase, and Stripe, we set out to rebuild global payments infrastructure from the ground up using stablecoin rails — enabling instant, transparent, and cost-efficient money movement.”

Mission Lane Applies for Charter

Mission Lane, a Richmond-based credit card startup, is the latest company to apply for a bank charter. The proposed de novo, to be known as Mission Lane Bank, will operate as a special-purpose credit card bank, if approved. Per the public portion of the company’s charter application, Mission Lane intends to use the charter “to focus on a specific market niche: an estimated 70 million Americans geographically dispersed across the country who are systematically underserved by traditional financial institutions and have a demonstrated need for affordable access to credit.” Presently, Mission Lane partners with two banks to issue its cards: Transportation Alliance Bank and WebBank. As a special-purpose credit card bank, Mission Lane Bank would only be allowed to engage in credit card operations and would be prohibited from accepting “demand deposits or deposits that the depositor may withdraw by check or similar means for payment to third parties or others.”

Repay Rebuffs Acquisition Offer

Payments processor Repay has attracted a $1Bn takeover offer from Forager Capital, per a letter from the investor last week. Forager already owns a 13% stake in Repay and is offering $4.80 a share, a hefty 75% premium to its 30-day volume-weighted average price of $2.75. Repay said it would consider the offer, but per reporting in Payments Dive, the company implemented a shareholder rights plan to defend against the unwanted offer. The proposed takeover comes as Repay is pursuing a deal of its own: the potential acquisition of Kubra Data Transfer, another company in the payment processing space. Repay offered $372Mn to acquire the company last month, but the offer was rejected, owing to opposition from Veradace Partners, which owns an 8.4% stake in Kubra Data Transfer.