Interview

1. The business idea:​

The business idea: 

We started Noah with one obsession: money should move as fast as information. 

In Argentina, Nigeria, and Turkey, people watch their life savings evaporate as inflation devours 50% of their currency's value in months. Bitcoin offered hope - finally, a way to save and send money without permission. In Kenya and Nigeria, it brought millions into the global economy for the first time. That's where our journey began. 

But Bitcoin's wild swings made it impractical for daily life. Enter stablecoins: the speed and freedom of blockchain technology with the stability of dollars. We saw the future instantly - digital money that could actually scale globally. 

Today, Noah is the infrastructure layer making that future real. Our platform unifies stablecoins, local payment rails, and traditional banking through one single API. Latin America's largest crypto exchange runs their entire operation on us. Global payroll companies pay workers instantly across 70 countries. Neobanks offer cross-border payments they couldn't dream of before. 

We built everything from scratch: virtual accounts in key markets (e.g. USD, EUR), smart routing across 120 currencies, instant settlement layers, and programmable compliance that adapts to any jurisdiction. This isn't patched banking tech - it's infrastructure designed for how money should work. Noah is what we wished existed when we started, and now we're putting it in the hands of every business on earth. 

2. The best thing about self-employment:

The best thing about self-employment: 

You build the future without asking permission. No committees debating if something "fits the roadmap." No waiting for legacy systems to evolve. When we realized SWIFT was a 50-year-old messaging system trying to keep up with today’s speed, we didn't write a whitepaper - we built the replacement. 

That freedom is intoxicating but demands total ownership. Every bug is yours. Every delayed settlement costs trust. But it also means moving at the speed of thought. We shipped our first product in weeks, not years. We talk directly to the engineers at Circle and Fireblocks, not through three layers of partnership managers. 

Most importantly, you hire people who share your urgency. Our team doesn't work at Noah - they're building Noah. That's the difference between a job and a mission. 

3. The most valuable experience:

Learning that clarity beats complexity every time. Early on, we were building everything - trading, wallets, payments. We were solving ten problems partially instead of one completely. 

The breakthrough came when we crystallized our mission: become the infrastructure layer for stablecoin payments. Suddenly everything clicked. Investors stopped asking "but what do you actually do?" Clients started saying "finally, someone gets it." Our engineering velocity tripled because everyone knew exactly what we were building. 

That clarity shaped everything - our messaging ("More swift than SWIFT"), our product decisions (infrastructure-first, not consumer-facing), and our hiring (only people who dream about instant global settlement). Focus transformed good work into unstoppable momentum. 

4. The biggest challenge:

Building trust in an industry synonymous with chaos. Crypto has a reputation problem - scams, volatility, regulatory uncertainty. Yet we're asking Fortune 500 companies to run their global payments through stablecoin rails. 

The challenge isn't technical - we can move millions instantly across continents. It's earning credibility in a space where credibility is scarce. That means perfect reliability (99.99% uptime), proactive compliance (SOC 2, ISO 27001), and obsessive client service (engineers on Slack, not support tickets). 

We're also building in regulatory limbo. Stablecoins exist between traditional finance and crypto, with rules being written in real-time. We've had to become experts in financial regulation across 70 jurisdictions while moving fast enough to capture the market. 

The hardest part? Maintaining startup speed while building infrastructure-grade reliability. That tension defines every decision we make. 

5. A tip for future founders:

Obsess over a single painful problem until you can solve it in your sleep. Everything else is noise. 

We talk to clients every single day. Not surveys or feedback forms - actual conversations. We know their edge cases better than they do. When a payroll company struggled with Friday settlement delays, we built same-day processing. When a PSP needed multi-currency virtual accounts, we shipped them in six weeks. 

But product-market fit is only half the equation. In payments, relationships are part of the product. Every bank connection, every compliance provider, every partner took months of trust-building. There's no API for credibility - you earn it one conversation at a time. 

Most founders think too small. If you're going to dedicate years of your life, pick a problem that is hard enough and worth solving. We're not building a feature - we're redesigning global payments infrastructure. Think bigger. 

6. I am grateful to the HSG for this:

HSG taught me to think globally from the start, exposing me to international financial systems beyond local markets. It also instilled strong analytical rigour, helping me cut through complexity and think from first principles with a clear, academic mindset. 

7. I could use support from other alumnae or alumni for this:

We are always looking to work with talented people, either to hire them or to partner with them. If you know of anyone that we should speak to who could be relevant to us, please let us know.  

8. Targets for the current year (2025)

2025 is our breakout year. We're targeting: 

Scale: 5x transaction volume to $5B+ processed, driven by enterprise payroll, marketplace payouts, and stablecoin treasury management. We are heavily investing in the US market with key people moving to NYC to expand our presence.  

Product expansion: Launching virtual accounts in 10+ new currencies, expanding from 70 to 120 country coverage, and shipping our AI-powered operations suite that will cut settlement times from minutes to seconds. 

Infrastructure depth: SOC 2 Type II certification (July), ISO 27001 (Q4), and expanding blockchain support beyond Ethereum, Polygon, and Tron to every major chain. 

Team growth: Doubling from 42 to 80+ people, with key hires in engineering (blockchain architects), compliance (regulatory counsel), and commercial (enterprise sales). 

Market position: Becoming the default infrastructure choice for any company serious about stablecoin payments. When businesses think instant global settlement, they'll think Noah. 

The stablecoin market will hit $2 trillion by 2028. We're building the rails to make that happen. 

The questions were answered by: Shah Ramezani 

Facts & Figures

Name of the company: Noah 
Founding year: 2022
Founders: Shah Ramezani
Relation to the university:  HSG Alumni
Branches: Finance
Number of employees: 38

Website: www.noah.com