usdc
(5)
Hugo Finkelstein
Hugo Finkelstein is the co-founder and CEO of Rise, a global payroll and compliance company that lets businesses pay contractors and employees across 190+ countries in local currency, stablecoins, or crypto. What started at Babson College as a campus buy-and-sell app turned into a career in crypto community-building and, eventually, a payroll platform that has processed more than $1 billion in payments. Rise raised a $6.3M Series A in November 2024 led by Draper Associates and Polymorphic Capital, and Finkelstein has become one of the clearest voices arguing that the real stablecoin use case is not trading, it is payroll.
Jelena Djuric
Jelena Djuric is the co-founder and CEO of Noble, a blockchain built for issuing and moving stablecoins natively across the interchain. She started Noble in early 2023 with Stefan Coolican and John Letey after years working across the Cosmos, Dfinity and Celo ecosystems, and after helping found the Canadian Web3 Council. Noble powers native USDC on Cosmos and now connects roughly 50 blockchains, has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, and raised a $15 million Series A led by Paradigm in late 2024. Djuric's stated ambition is to make stablecoins as easy to send as a Venmo payment.
Sean Neville
Sean Neville is the cofounder and CEO of Catena Labs, a Boston startup building what it calls the first fully regulated AI-native financial institution - a bank designed for autonomous AI agents to hold accounts, spend, get paid, and settle in stablecoins. He previously cofounded Circle in 2013 with Jeremy Allaire and served as its president and co-CEO, where he was the architect behind USDC. Catena raised an $18 million seed in May 2025 (led by a16z crypto) and a $30 million Series A in May 2026 (led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto), and is applying for a national trust bank charter with the OCC.
Bernardo Garcia
Bernardo Garcia is the Co-Founder and COO of Félix Pago, a Miami-based fintech startup that lets Latino immigrants in the US send money home via WhatsApp in roughly 40 seconds. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Garcia built his career across consulting and Uber before earning his MBA at Wharton, where he met co-founder Manuel Godoy. Together they launched Félix in 2020, growing it to process over $1 billion in remittances in 2024 and raising a $75 million Series B in April 2025 led by QED Investors.
Manuel Godoy
Manuel Godoy is the Co-Founder and CEO of Félix, a WhatsApp-native remittance platform that uses USDC stablecoins and AI to let Latino immigrants send money home in minutes for a fraction of traditional costs. Born in Venezuela and educated at Caltech and Wharton, Godoy turned his own immigrant experience into a company that has processed over $1 billion in remittances, serves 400,000+ active users across nine countries, and raised $90.5M including a $75M Series B in April 2025 led by QED Investors.