Tether and London-based asset manager Fasanara Capital have jointly seeded a new private credit vehicle with $400 million of their own capital, with ambitions to scale it to $3 billion through institutional fundraising, the companies announced Wednesday. [1]
The fund, branded StableFund, is structured as an evergreen vehicle — meaning it has no fixed end date — and will deploy capital into short-duration, asset-backed lending across more than 60 countries. [1]
How StableFund Works
The division of labor between the two partners is clearly defined. Fasanara, which manages more than $6 billion in assets, will handle investment management and deploy capital through its existing network of fintech lenders. Tether, meanwhile, will source USDT-linked financing opportunities and provide the on- and off-chain infrastructure needed to move funds using its dollar-pegged stablecoin as the settlement layer. [1]
Target borrowers include small and medium-sized businesses as well as consumers, with specific focus areas including trade receivables and supply chain finance — segments that have historically been underserved by traditional bank lending and are well-suited to the speed advantages that stablecoin settlement can offer. [1]
Tether's Expanding Investment Footprint
The launch marks another significant step in Tether's ongoing effort to deploy its substantial balance sheet beyond its core stablecoin operations. The USDT issuer reported $187.8 billion in assets and a $4.11 billion reserve buffer as of the end of June, and generated approximately $1.5 billion in net operating profit in the second quarter alone — earnings driven largely by its holdings in US Treasuries and repo agreements. [1]
That financial firepower has increasingly been pointed at a diverse range of ventures. Tether has made a $20 million investment in Argentine neobank Ualá, taken positions in Mercado Bitcoin and Italian football club Juventus, and led a $50 million funding round for AI sleep technology company Eight Sleep as recently as March. [1] StableFund represents its largest and most structurally ambitious deployment yet, combining its stablecoin infrastructure with a regulated asset manager's credit expertise to target a mainstream institutional audience.
Why Private Credit, Why Now
Private credit has emerged as one of the fastest-growing corners of global finance over the past several years, as rising interest rates made direct lending more attractive and banks retreated from certain lending categories under tighter regulatory constraints. Embedding USDT as settlement infrastructure could allow StableFund to move capital across borders and through fintech intermediaries faster and at lower cost than traditional correspondent banking — a meaningful operational edge in markets where speed of deployment affects returns.
Fasanara's existing fintech lending network across more than 60 countries gives the fund immediate distribution reach that would take years to build from scratch. [1] For Tether, the partnership offers a credible institutional wrapper — Fasanara is a regulated, London-based manager — around what would otherwise be a novel and potentially scrutinized use of stablecoin infrastructure in credit markets.
Institutional Appetite and the Road to $3 Billion
The $3 billion target is ambitious but not implausible given the scale of institutional interest in private credit alternatives. The $400 million anchor commitment from the two founding partners provides a meaningful signal of conviction, though whether external allocators will embrace a fund that uses USDT as its settlement backbone remains an open question. Regulatory clarity around stablecoins in major institutional markets — particularly in Europe and the United States — will likely influence how quickly that capital can be raised.
USDT remains the world's largest stablecoin by market capitalization, and its use in cross-border transactions is already well established in emerging markets. [1] Positioning it as settlement infrastructure for a regulated private credit product is a different proposition, however — one aimed at pension funds, endowments, and family offices that operate under strict compliance frameworks.
What to Watch
Several indicators will signal whether StableFund gains traction in the months ahead. Watch for announcements of institutional limited partners committing capital beyond the founding $400 million, which would validate the fund's appeal to traditional allocators. Track how regulators in key jurisdictions respond to the use of USDT as settlement infrastructure within a formally structured credit vehicle — any enforcement action or guidance could reshape the fund's operational model. Finally, monitor Fasanara's deployment pace through its fintech network: the speed at which the initial capital is put to work in trade receivables and supply chain finance will be the clearest early test of whether the stablecoin-powered private credit thesis holds up in practice.
