Stripe’s ambitious blockchain initiative, Tempo, has successfully raised $500 million in a Series A funding round, propelling its valuation to $5 billion. The investment round was led by prominent venture capital firms Greenoaks and Thrive Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, and Ron Conway’s SV Angel. Notably, Stripe and Paradigm, the venture capital firm collaborating with Stripe on this project, did not add additional capital in this round, according to an individual familiar with the matter.
Tempo represents Stripe’s first foray into developing a custom layer-1 blockchain, specifically designed with a focus on payment processing and financial applications. The announcement follows the launch of Stripe’s partnership with Paradigm, a key investor in crypto and Web3 startups, which was revealed less than two months prior.
Stripe’s CEO, Patrick Collison, highlighted the motivation behind building Tempo, emphasizing the growing use of stablecoins and cryptocurrency across Stripe’s services such as Bridge and Privy. He explained on the social platform X that existing blockchains fall short when it comes to serving the needs of fast, scalable, real-world financial transactions. Collison described Tempo as a “payments-oriented L1,” optimized to handle high-volume financial applications.
While the exact launch date for Tempo remains undisclosed, Paradigm’s Chief Technology Officer, Georgios Konstantopoulos, announced that the core engineering team from Ithaca—Paradigm’s open-source blockchain project—will be joining Tempo. Their expertise is expected to accelerate development of the blockchain’s payments infrastructure and expand the project’s technical capacity.
Tempo’s focus on payment infrastructure places it in direct competition with established stablecoin projects integrated into global payment networks. Among these is Circle’s USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin launched in 2018 that commands a market capitalization of approximately $75.6 billion and is supported by Mastercard and Visa.
Circle recently disclosed plans to launch its own layer-1 blockchain later this year, aiming to provide a robust enterprise-grade platform tailored for stablecoin transactions, capital markets, and foreign exchange applications, underscoring the increasing competitiveness in the stablecoin ecosystem.
The recent surge in stablecoin innovations has been spurred partly by the introduction of the GENIUS Act in the United States, enacted in July to formalize federal regulations governing stablecoin issuers. Meanwhile, European initiatives promoting euro-pegged stablecoins signal a strategic move to establish alternatives to US dollar-backed digital currencies in the global market.
As blockchain payments continue to evolve, Stripe’s Tempo project demonstrates the fintech giant’s commitment to creating a specialized blockchain solution tailored to meet the demands of contemporary financial applications, potentially reshaping the landscape of crypto-based payment processing.
