Legacy infrastructure still hinders cross-border payments. A single transfer involves multiple intermediaries, runs on outdated banking rails, and depends on pre-funded accounts that trap capital. Each added party introduces cost, delay, and friction.

Many providers, especially in traditional fintech, add new interfaces without addressing the underlying problems. More integrations, more complexity, but the same broken rails. On the Web3 side, some projects rebuild from scratch, including new L1s, but adoption stalls without compliance or local access. The result is the same: fragmented infrastructure and slow, costly transfers. Southeast Asia highlights this most clearly, with high remittance demand, complex currency flows, and no dominant player orchestrating it end-to-end.

The Singapore to the Philippines corridor alone moves over $2.3B annually, but average fees remain above 5%. It still takes days to settle $200. If you’re a wallet, a remittance app, or a fintech platform, you cannot plug in and move value across jurisdictions efficiently.

Stablecoins offer a faster, programmable and lower-friction alternative to traditional cross-border rails. However, the infrastructure supporting them is still limited. Most solutions are locked into a single chain or built with theoretical constraints that make integrations difficult.

What’s missing is a neutral, programmable router. Something that connects liquidity, partners, and networks into an orchestration system that just works. Southeast Asia is the natural proving ground: deep remittance volume, strong mobile wallet penetration, and fragmented currency pairs in need of better coordination.

xWeave is not a remittance app. It is not a protocol, it is the orchestration layer that connects licensed endpoints and finds the best available path for value to move.

It connects to regulated partners, prices routes dynamically, and chooses the cheapest, fastest available rail. It does not take custody, and it does not add extra layers of cost. It integrates with existing systems and routes through them more efficiently, always finding the lowest-cost path. Today, that often means stablecoins. Tomorrow, it may include CBDCs.

Unlike most infrastructure players that stack fees, xWeave reduces cost by optimizing liquidity routing. It earns from efficiency, not friction.

xWeave integrates with partners quickly. There is no need for new licenses, custody setups, or wallet systems. A remittance platform can plug in within weeks.

The routing engine prices each transaction based on network availability, compliance needs, and FX exposure. It selects the optimal path for each flow without locking partners into fixed rails or rigid architecture.

Legacy payment flows add margin at every layer. xWeave strips that out by routing directly through the most cost-effective liquidity sources. It reduces pre-funding needs and ensures both sender and recipient get better economics.

It does not charge per transaction in the traditional sense. Instead, it improves pricing and takes a small cut from the value it unlocks.

xWeave does not rely on a single chain or asset. It is designed to integrate stablecoins now and CBDCs as they become available. The architecture stays loose enough to evolve with regulatory conditions and market needs.

xWeave isn’t building its own blockchain. It’s intentionally staying agnostic, designed to route value across whatever layer, network, or asset delivers the best outcome, without locking into a single stack too early.

Their founder, Milind Sanghavi, has built and scaled payments at Meta, Visa, and OCBC. His experience navigating global value flows shows in xWeave’s go-to-market: start in corridors with volume and regulatory clarity, onboard trusted endpoints, and scale through usage, not speculation.

The product is already live in Singapore and is onboarding in the Philippines and Saudi Arabia.

Lightshift co-led the round with Jungle Ventures, alongside Menyala, White Star, DCG, and Fabric. We backed xWeave because the team is executing, the infrastructure is live, and the market needs this now.

We believe infrastructure only matters when it solves a real problem. xWeave is already moving value across borders where others are still stuck in setup mode.

xWeave is building a practical solution that uses stablecoins to solve real problems. It leverages blockchain to move value more efficiently and cut costs where it matters most, which is why we backed it.

Investing in xWeave: Owning Corridors - The Stablecoin Wedge in Cross-Border Payments