The team behind crypto payments app Valora is joining Stripe as the payments giant increasingly expands into blockchain technology and stablecoins, Valora founder Jackie Bona said in a blog post on Wednesday.
“We’ve seen firsthand how stablecoins and cryptocurrency rails can expand economic opportunity,” Boehner said. “Over the past few months, it’s become clear that we can accelerate that mission by joining Stripe, one of the world’s leading financial infrastructure platforms.”
Valora is a mobile-based crypto payment app the Ethereum layer 2 network. The startup was spun out of cLabs, the development organization behind Celo, in 2021, having raised $20 million in that time.
A Stripe spokesperson confirmed the news to CoinDesk, adding that Valora’s “team’s experience with crypto wallet infrastructure and on-chain development tools brings valuable expertise to our ongoing crypto efforts.”
The news follows Stripe’s recent efforts to incorporate cryptocurrency rail into its payments functionality, as stablecoins are becoming popular cross-border payment tools. The company recently acquired stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge and wallet app Privy. It has also developed (in partnership with cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm) a payments-centric blockchain called Tempo designed for stablecoin payments. Tempo is already in beta.
Read more: Why Circle and Stripe (and many other companies) are launching their own blockchains
