Thrive Capital and Greenoaks lead investment as Stripe pushes deeper into blockchain-based payment infrastructure
Stripe’s newly launched blockchain network, Tempo, has reached a $5 billion valuation following a $500 million Series A funding round, signaling growing investor confidence in blockchain-based payment infrastructure. The raise was led by Thrive Capital and Greenoaks, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, and SV Angel, according to reports from industry insiders.
The latest funding round comes less than two months after Stripe officially unveiled Tempo, its in-house layer-1 blockchain designed for stablecoin and real-world payment applications. The network aims to make digital transactions faster, cheaper, and more compatible with traditional financial systems — a long-standing challenge in the Web3 sector.
Stripe CEO Patrick Collison emphasized that the new blockchain was built out of necessity. “As the use of stablecoins and crypto grows across Stripe’s platforms, we realized existing blockchains aren’t optimized for these high-scale payment flows,” he said. “Tempo is designed as a payments-oriented blockchain — one that brings blockchain speed to the real economy.”
Tempo’s development is being accelerated by Ithaca’s open-source engineering team, which recently joined the project under a collaboration with Paradigm, a venture capital firm specializing in crypto and Web3 innovation. Paradigm’s Chief Technology Officer Georgios Konstantopoulos confirmed that the partnership will “enhance Tempo’s core infrastructure to support real-world financial applications at scale.”
While Stripe has not announced a native Tempo token, the project directly positions itself against established players in the stablecoin and blockchain payments market, including Circle’s USDC and PayPal’s PYUSD.
Industry analysts believe Tempo could become a critical bridge between fintech and blockchain, especially as global payment providers explore stablecoin-based settlement systems. “Tempo could redefine how institutional payments interact with digital assets,” said one blockchain strategist. “Stripe has the scale, the trust, and now, the blockchain to make it happen.”
With this funding, Tempo joins the ranks of the most valuable blockchain startups in the world, marking a pivotal moment for the convergence of fintech and decentralized finance.
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