Xalts and Contour Network Merger: Building Infrastructure for Digital Trade Finance

Why This Deal Matters

Global trade hit $30 trillion in 2023, yet here’s the kicker—less than 1% runs on digital rails. The bottleneck? A single cross-border transaction still requires up to 50 pieces of paper shuffled between 30+ different parties. That’s where Xalts’ acquisition of Contour Network comes in.

The Setup: Two Players Combining Forces

Xalts, a fintech platform backed by Accel and Citi Ventures, has picked up Contour Network—a blockchain-powered trade finance solution owned by a consortium of global banks. Launched in 2017, Contour built a network that now includes 22 banks and over 100 enterprises like Tata Group and Rio Tinto. The deal aims to transform how businesses and financial institutions exchange trade documents and execute transactions across borders.

The Vision: “Plaid for Trade”

Xalts founder Ashutosh Goel frames the ambition clearly: they’re taking inspiration from Silicon Valley success stories like Plaid and Stripe to build embedded solutions for trade finance. Rather than forcing participants to adopt entirely new systems, the platform enables banks, logistics companies, and fintech partners to layer digital solutions onto existing infrastructure.

The company plans to use Contour’s established workflows and bank relationships as the foundation, then add tokenization capabilities and multi-party application support on top. Think of it as creating a standardized rail where different financial services can plug in seamlessly.

What This Unlocks

By combining Xalts’ platform architecture with Contour’s industry trust and network effects, several things become possible:

Embedded Finance Expansion: Banks and logistics providers can offer integrated trade solutions to clients without rebuilding from scratch.

Blockchain Integration: The merged entity will enable institutions to explore tokenization in supply chain finance—something increasingly important as enterprises seek faster settlement and greater transparency.

Ecosystem Play: Rather than being a siloed solution, the platform becomes an infrastructure layer that other fintechs and technology companies can build on.

The Team and Backing

Xalts was founded in 2022 by former HSBC and Meta executives. With over 50 employees across Singapore, Hong Kong, India, UAE, and UK, the company has already attracted major financial institutions and regulatory bodies as clients. Citi Ventures, which invested in both Contour in 2020 and Xalts in 2022, sees this combination as the natural evolution of its fintech strategy.

Carl Wegner, Contour’s previous CEO, is staying on in a senior leadership capacity—a signal that cultural integration may be smoother than typical M&A situations.

The Bigger Picture

This deal reflects a broader trend: incumbent banks and startups are racing to digitize trade finance before someone else owns the standard. As cross-border commerce grows and supply chains continue reshaping, the winner likely won’t be whoever builds the most sophisticated technology, but whoever creates the most adopted network. Xalts is betting that Contour’s existing consortium gives them that head start.