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ZBD ANNOUNCES $40M SERIES C TO BRING REAL-MONEY PAYMENTS AND REWARDS NATIVELY INTO VIDEO GAMES
ZBD, the payments innovator powering real-money transactions for games and apps, today announced it has secured USD $40M in Series C financing commitments from Blockstream Capital Partners ("BCP"), accelerating its growth as the only fully-licensed, vertically-integrated payments provider built for gaming.
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[{"type":"text","content":"HOBOKEN, N.J., Jan. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- ZBD, the payments innovator powering real-money transactions for games and apps, today announced it has secured USD $40M in Series C financing commitments from Blockstream Capital Partners ("BCP"), accelerating its growth as the only fully-licensed, vertically-integrated payments provider built for gaming.","length":362,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"image","alt":"ZBD Series C","displaySize":"","headline":null,"caption":"ZBD Series C","className":"","disableSlideshowImg":false,"size":{"original":{"width":400,"height":225,"url":"https://media.zenfs.com/en/prnewswire.com/ba78d3c02bfed67e71da2e436a80eb3b"},"resized":{"url":"https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/GgyFy76CQtuUNfeIHKuDzg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTM5NztjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/prnewswire.com/ba78d3c02bfed67e71da2e436a80eb3b","width":400,"height":225},"resize_sm":{"url":"https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/GSlejVo3TQQeNhSjpLoPeg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTY0MDtoPTM2MDtjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/prnewswire.com/ba78d3c02bfed67e71da2e436a80eb3b","width":400,"height":225}},"href":"https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2867422/ZBD_Series_C.html","hrefExternal":true,"rel":"nofollow"},{"type":"text","content":"ZBD uses the Lightning Network to power real-money embedded payments at scale, creating a frictionless, compliant money movement layer. The company already processes more than 120 million transactions annually and has doubled the number of games integrated with its SDK over the past 12 months, driven by adoption from developers including TapNation, Fumb Games and PlayEmber. These partners use ZBD's infrastructure at scale to deliver tens of millions in fiat currencies, bitcoin, and gift card rewards to gamers.","length":519,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"text","content":"In the $189 billion video games industry, where payments innovation is traditionally focused on maximizing revenue from player purchases (pay-ins), ZBD takes a novel approach. The company has also shown that instant real-money earnings (payouts) can be embedded natively into gameplay to boost lifetime value (LTV) and create a long lasting two-way value exchange with gamers. While the games industry already leverages rewarded user acquisition and monetization mechanics, ZBD enables embedded, instant, real-money payments – something other ex...