Alpaca Funds AI, Tokenization
Alpaca secures $135 million to expand tokenized markets and AI investment infrastructure.
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Key Points
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Alpaca surpassed $1.5 billion in assets under custody (AUC) backing the underlying stocks for tokenized equities, signaling scale beyond pure trading infrastructure.
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Monthly active API users grew nearly 4x in the last six months as Alpaca expanded its agentic AI capabilities.
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The equity portion of the round drew participation from new investors Opera Tech Ventures and BNP Paribas Group's venture arm (BNP Paribas Ventures), with Unbound also among the backers, alongside Peak XV Partners and Elefund.
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Debt financing in the round totaled about $300 million, provided primarily by Payward (Kraken's parent) and BMO.
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Alpaca has rolled out tools like the Trading MCP Server and a command-line interface designed to let AI agents and natural-language systems execute trades programmatically.
Alpaca has raised $135 million in equity to expand its infrastructure for trading tokenized stocks, with total financing in the round reaching $435 million when debt is included, according to CoinDesk. The equity portion was led by Peak XV Partners, with new backers including BNP Paribas Ventures and Opera Tech Ventures joining returning investor Elefund.
The raise follows a $150 million Series D in January 2026 that valued Alpaca at $1.15 billion. About $300 million of the new financing came as debt, provided primarily by Payward — Kraken's parent company — and BMO, CoinTelegraph reported.
Tokenized Stocks Now Backed by $1.5 Billion in Real Assets
Alpaca already powers tokenized equities for Kraken, the major crypto exchange. Its infrastructure covers roughly 94% of US equities and ETFs. The company now holds more than $1.5 billion in assets under custody — the real stocks that sit behind the tokenized versions traded on crypto platforms, TipRanks reported.
No new crypto tokens were issued in this round. Alpaca is building plumbing, not launching coins. The company acts as a regulated bridge between traditional stock markets and blockchain-based trading platforms, letting clients like Kraken offer real US stocks on-chain.
AI Agents Are Driving a Surge in Trading Activity
Monthly active API users grew nearly 4x in just six months as Alpaca leaned into so-called agentic AI — software that can act and trade on its own. The company launched tools like a Trading MCP Server and a command-line interface that let AI systems execute trades using plain language instructions, Pulse2 reported.
AI agents drove a major jump in trading volume in Q1 2026. Alpaca calls its platform "agent-first," meaning it is built from the ground up for automated, AI-powered investing rather than human-click trading. That shift is a central part of why investors backed the company.
Alpaca Buying Its Way Into Global Regulated Markets
Alpaca has been growing its regulated footprint through acquisitions and a process called passporting — using one country's license to operate in others. It picked up an IFSCA-regulated broker-dealer in India and has added UK and European entities, FinSMEs reported.
That regulatory expansion matters because tokenized assets need licensed infrastructure to be legal in most countries. Alpaca's strategy is to be the compliant, scalable layer that institutions plug into — rather than building their own regulated brokerage from scratch.
Fresh Capital Will Fund Prime Brokerage Push for Institutions
Alpaca plans to use the new funds to scale its API-based prime brokerage — a set of services that big institutional clients need to trade at scale. The company has reported multi-year revenue growth and rising API usage, signaling that demand from financial firms is accelerating, according to TipRanks.
The involvement of BNP Paribas Ventures, the venture arm of one of Europe's largest banks, is a notable signal. Traditional finance is betting that tokenized markets need regulated, API-driven infrastructure — and Alpaca is positioning itself as that foundation.
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