Stripe Acqui-Hires Crypto Payments Startup Valora, Venturing Further Into Stablecoins

The team behind crypto payments app Valora is joining Stripe as the payments giant increasingly expands into blockchain tech and stablecoins, Valora founder Jackie Bona said in a Wednesday blog post.

“We’ve seen firsthand how access to stablecoins and crypto rails can expand economic opportunity,” Bona said. “In the past few months, it became clear that we could accelerate this mission by joining Stripe, one of the world’s leading financial infrastructure platforms.”

Valora is a mobile-focused crypto payments app built on top of the CELO$0.1726, an Ethereum layer-2 network. The startup spun out of cLabs, the development organization behind Celo, in 2021 and raised $20 million at the time.

A Stripe spokesperson has confirmed the news to CoinDesk, adding that the Valora “team’s experience in crypto wallet infrastructure and onchain developer tools brings valuable expertise to our ongoing crypto efforts.”

The news follows on the heels of Stripe’s recent efforts to incorporate crypto rails to its payment capabilities, as stablecoins are becoming popular cross-border payment tools. The company recently acquired stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge and wallet app Privy. It also developed (in conjunction with crypto investment firm Paradigm) a payment-focused blockchain called Tempo, designed for stablecoin payments. Tempo is already in a test phase.

Read more: Why Circle and Stripe (And Many Others) Are Launching Their Own Blockchains