Circle

Circle Internet Group, Inc. issues USDC, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, and EURC, a euro-denominated stablecoin, and sells the software businesses and developers use to mint, redeem and move them across blockchains. Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville founded the company in Boston in 2013 as a consumer payments business built on the bitcoin blockchain. Allaire, previously chief executive of Brightcove and an entrepreneur in residence at General Catalyst, remains chairman and chief executive. The company is now headquartered in New York.

Accel and General Catalyst had invested before the Series B, and General Catalyst managing director David Orfao has sat on the board since October 2013. In March 2014 Circle closed a $17 million Series B led by existing investors Breyer Capital, Accel and General Catalyst and new investor Oak Investment Partners, with Pantera Capital and Fenway Summer participating, bringing total funding to $26 million. A $50 million round announced in April 2015 added Goldman Sachs and IDG Capital, and all existing investors, including Digital Currency Group, took part. Circle raised a $60 million Series D in June 2016. In May 2018 Bitmain led a $110 million Series E as Circle launched USDC through the Centre consortium with Coinbase. Circle had raised about $1.1 billion by late 2019. It announced a $440 million financing in May 2021 and a $400 million round in April 2022 from BlackRock, Fidelity Management and Research, Marshall Wace and Fin Capital. A 2021 plan to list through a merger with Concord Acquisition Corp was terminated in December 2022.

Circle priced its initial public offering at $31 per share and listed on the New York Stock Exchange as CRCL in June 2025, selling 14.8 million new shares while selling stockholders sold 19.2 million. The prospectus reported total revenue and reserve income of $1.68 billion and net income of $156 million for 2024. Before the offering, General Catalyst held 12.8% of Class A shares, IDG Capital entities 12.6%, Breyer Capital entities 9.0%, Oak Investment Partners 7.5%, FMR 7.2% and Accel entities 6.9%. Reuters and Bloomberg coverage cited by Wikipedia reported the market value near $28.6 billion by its second trading day. In July 2026 Circle received final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to form a national trust bank.

Circle shows a long path from seed to liquidity: its earliest venture investors waited about twelve years, through a pivot from consumer bitcoin payments to stablecoin issuance and an abandoned SPAC merger. Accel, General Catalyst, Breyer Capital, IDG Capital and Oak Investment Partners each still held more than 5% at the IPO, and several sold part of their stakes as selling stockholders in the offering.