Alpaca Secures $52M to Expand Global Trading Platform Beyond US Borders

There’s no doubting these days that—despite the odd wobble here and there—the US stock market holds a magnetic allure for investors worldwide. Its sheer scale and liquidity make it tough to resist, but trading there from abroad can be trickier than navigating a motorway jam on a bank holiday.

Enter Alpaca, a fintech startup based out in San Mateo that's quietly made a name for itself by offering API services that allow financial firms to provide US trading access directly to their customers. As of now, Alpaca reckons they have more than five million brokerage accounts managed through their platform, working with over 200 institutional clients across 40 countries. Not too shabby, eh?

On Wednesday, the company announced some rather good news—securing $52 million in a Series C funding round. Alpaca plans to use this fresh bit of cash to expand further into regions such as the Middle East, Europe and Asia, aiming for more regulatory licenses to help them smoothly set up shop elsewhere. Investors backing Alpaca this round included names both familiar and fresh-faced— Derayah Financial, 850 Management, National Investments Company Kuwait, Unbound, and Portage Ventures were all on board.

Speaking to TechCrunch, Alpaca CEO Yoshi Yokokawa pointed out that securing additional capital is crucial to shift Alpaca from being "a US-only anchored company" to something much more global. He emphasised how this latest funding would be instrumental in transforming their brokerage platform into a worldwide infrastructure—that’ll be music to lots of ears, especially traders craving smoother access to US stocks without red tape headaches.

But it's not all about geography. Alpaca also intends to diversify its offerings further and enable trading products beyond the US. The firm plans to introduce European and Asian equities, and they’re working towards supporting around-the-clock weekday trading for US assets. In short, Alpaca wants to be a truly global hub, welcoming traders from Manchester to Mumbai.

Since kicking off operations back in 2018, Alpaca was initially built as an infrastructure provider for fintech businesses wanting to develop trading services compliant with various local rules. Co-founded by Yokokawa (a former investment banking professional with experience both Stateside and in Japan), alongside their Chief Product Officer, Hitoshi Harada, Alpaca saw quick growth as it streamlined the complexities of global trading logistics.

More recently, Alpaca has branched out further, getting involved with fixed-income offerings, options, ETFs, and even partnering up with crypto platform Kraken, letting Kraken customers invest in traditional finance products too. Quite an ambitious leap, given all the hassle the fintech industry can involve—it's a crowded space these days.

Interestingly, Yokokawa mentioned that since Alpaca's Series B extension round in October 2023, the firm's revenues and assets held on its platform have trebled, while trading volume has skyrocketed fourfold. This funding success means Alpaca's total fundraising now stands at an impressive $170 million.

Yokokawa also noted one of Alpaca's advantages over older rivals, like Interactive Brokers, which started up way back in 1978. While recognising Interactive Brokers' global reach and tech capabilities, Yokokawa believes Alpaca's more modern architecture translates into quicker and sleeker solutions that institutions find appealing. "These banks prefer partners offering modern solutions, and this approach seems to be doing the trick for us," he said candidly.

With roughly 200 employees, Alpaca's workforce mainly operates remotly from different locations around the world. Boosted by their new funds, the firm recently opened a new office in New York City too, another sign they've truly set their sights on a bigger prize—and perhaps a decent slice of the Big Apple pie as well.

A quick glance at the bigger picture shows fintech generally has been bouncing back too. Global funding in fintech companies reached $10.3 billion in the first quarter of 2025, the highest we've seen since early 2023. It's not just crypto drawing investment either; startups in payments, banking, and financial security are all feeling the love.

Elsewhere in fintech, Ramp—a US expense-management startup valued at around $13 billion—has caught some attention after getting itself lined up as a possible vendor for a sizable US government contract. This came about partly thanks to a tweet from the government's efficiency initiative, rather amusingly branded "DOGE." Ramp saw the tweet in February and jumped at the opportunity. Politics and tweets aside, the potential contract could reportedly be worth up to $25 million, though Ramp says nothing's set in stone yet.

All in all, it seems like fintech has shaken off those pandemic blues. Companies like Alpaca and Ramp keep finding ways to seize opportunities and innovate—and investors are clearly willing to back them generously as they spread their global wings. Keep an eye on Arageek to follow how these promising fintech plays unfold in future.

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