When we first met Geetha Panchapakesan, it was immediately clear she was one of those unique founders who has been preparing for this problem her entire career.
After nearly two decades at MoneyGram, Visa, and Circle, Geetha had seen every angle of global payments – from the slow, manual processes of correspondent banking to the opportunity of blockchain. Having witnessed the pain points of global money movement, Geetha saw an opportunity to redefine how payments flows across borders and started Tesser, a company building the stablecoin infrastructure layer for banks and payment service providers.
Stablecoins processed more than $6.4 trillion in transaction volume in 2024 – nearly half of Visa’s global payments volume – and have become the fastest-growing form of digital money movement.
And yet, most of the $44 trillion in cross-border payments run on legacy rails like SWIFT – systems that take days to move funds, cost hundreds of dollars per transfer, and require layers of reconciliation.
That’s where Tesser comes in. Tesser enables banks, fintechs, and PSPs to send and receive stablecoin-based cross-border payments securely and compliantly through a single API.
The platform abstracts away blockchain complexity – handling wallet provisioning, FX quoting, compliance orchestration, and reconciliation – while allowing institutions to maintain full control of risk, governance, and customer relationships. The result: international payments that move in real-time instead of days, at 1/20th the cost of existing rails.
Tesser comes at a time of regulatory clarity for stablecoins emerging around the world – from the GENIUS Act in the U.S. to MiCA in Europe and stablecoin frameworks in Singapore, Brazil, and the UAE. At the same time, incumbents like Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe are expanding stablecoin programs, while fintech infrastructure providers race to modernize.
While Tesser’s first product tackles cross-border payments, the team has an even more expansive vision – to build the backbone for how institutions will manage digital assets in the decade ahead.
As Geetha told us, “We’re giving institutions the infrastructure to add stablecoins as a payment rail – the same way they added mobile payments.”
At the Anthemis Female Innovators Lab Fund, we look for founders building systems-level change – infrastructure that reshapes how finance works from the inside out. Cross-border payments are one of the lifebloods of the global economy, yet remain one of the most antiquated part of finance, Tesser is rewriting that code.
We’re thrilled to support Geetha Panchapakesan, alongside Castle Island Ventures & Strobe Ventures, as Tesser launches at Money 20/20, and couldn’t be happier to welcome Tesser & Geetha to the Anthemis portfolio.
