Tim Draper-backed Ark Labs Raises $5.2 Million From Tether And Investors To Scale Bitcoin Infrastructure

Tim Draper-backed Bitcoin infrastructure startup Arc Labs has secured $5.2 million in seed funding to build a programmable financial infrastructure on the world's largest digital asset network.

According to Thursday's announcement, the round includes Tether, EgoMot Capital, Epoch VC, Leo26, Sat Ventures and Contribution Capital. Anchorage Digital and Ralph Ho, former vice president of finance at PayPal, also participated in the seed investment.

With the latest addition, the company's total institutional funding now stands at $7.7 million, a pre-seed round led by Draper Associates and backed by Fulgur Ventures, Axiom Capital and angel investor Stephen Cole.

Arc Labs plans to use the new capital to expand its team, onboard ecosystem partners and build developer tools to scale the arcade platform.

Released in October 2025, Arcade is a programmable execution layer built on the Ark protocol that aims to transform Bitcoin into a platform for financial applications. It allows developers to create wallets, payment systems and other services with real-time transactions, betting technology and self-sustaining currencies on Bitcoin.

Tether's involvement represents a strategic bet on Bitcoin-native infrastructure from the largest stablecoin operator in the market.

USDT commands over 70 percent of the global stablecoin market across multiple blockchains with a circulating supply of over $140 billion. The company has prioritized expanding its presence on the Bitcoin base layer by supporting similar infrastructure projects, including Utexo, to enable native USDT capabilities on the network.

“Stablecoins were born on Bitcoin, and expanding access to the Bitcoin network is a priority for us,” said Tether CEO Paolo Arduino. “Ark Labs is building an infrastructure that makes it easy to issue, move and stabilize a stablecoin directly on Bitcoin. Improving access to USDT on the most secure and widely recognized blockchain will support greater financial inclusion, more efficient cross-border payments and stronger global remittances.”

Alongside the funding, Ark Labs introduced Storicoin and digital asset support on Arkade, allowing partners to extract, transfer and redeem assets tokenized directly in Bitcoin.

The system uses virtual transaction outputs, known as VTXOs, which reflect Bitcoin UTXOs offchain to enable programmatic operations without changes on the underlying network.