As fervor around stablecoins grows from Silicon Valley to Wall Street, one of the highest-profile new crypto projects has amassed a massive vault of funds to support its ambitious plans. Tempo, a payments-focused blockchain developed by fintech giant Stripe and venture capital firm Paradigm, has raised $500 million in new funding in a Series A round led by venture capital giant Greenoaks and Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital, according to five people familiar with the matter.
The round values Tempo at $5 billion, representing one of the highest valued blockchain venture capital rounds in recent years. Sequoia, Ribbit Capital and Ron Conway’s SV Angel also participated, according to two of the people. Paradigm and Stripe did not contribute capital to the round.
The Tempo blockchain, which includes design partners such as OpenAI, Shopify and Visa, is primarily designed for stablecoins and represents a bet that dollar-backed cryptocurrencies will become the new infrastructure layer for global payments.
Greenoaks and Thrive, leading the funding round, are notable because both generalist companies typically invest in traditional sectors such as AI and enterprise software. Their bet on Tempo is the latest proof that crypto has entered the mainstream. For Tempo, integrating two of the largest venture capital firms will help it challenge major native stablecoin cryptocurrency companies, from Circle to Tether, as well as disrupt incumbents such as Mastercard.
Stripe, Paradigm, Greenoaks and SV Angel declined to comment. Thrive, Ribbit and Sequoia did not respond to a request for comment.
Enterprise Blockchains
Tempo is just the latest crypto play from Stripe. In February, the payments company struck a deal to acquire stablecoin startup Bridge for $1.1 billion. And in June, Stripe announced plans to buy crypto wallet company Privy for an undisclosed amount.
Stripe has already begun rolling out a suite of new stablecoin-related products, including Open Issuance, which allows Stripe customers to launch their own stablecoins. And Bridge co-founder and CEO Zach Abrams said Tuesday that his Stripe-owned startup has submitted an application for a national bank trust charter to comply with the Genius Act, recently enacted legislation that establishes regulatory guardrails for stablecoin issuers.
Tempo, however, represents Stripe’s most ambitious project as it seeks to compete with long-established blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana that process stablecoin transactions. Stripe partnered with Paradigm to roll out the initiative, and Paradigm Managing Partner Matt Huang, who also serves on Stripe’s board of directors, is leading Tempo.
Its launch date remains unclear, and Tempo has not indicated whether it will release its own crypto token. The company previously announced that it would remain stablecoin independent, meaning that different tokens can be used to pay for “gas” fees or small payments needed to process transactions.
Stripe’s Tempo isn’t the only blockchain planned by a major company. Since January, financial companies like online brokerage Robinhood and stablecoin giant Circle have announced plans to create their own blockchains.
Blockchains are essentially networks of servers that process cryptographic transactions. Upcoming chains like Stripe and Robinhood represent attempts to own every layer of the crypto technology stack, from the software that powers stablecoin transfers to the underlying servers that process them.
