Tempo secured a $500 million Series A at a $5 billion valuation, led by Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital and Greenoaks.

As a payments‑focused, stablecoin‑centric blockchain incubated by Stripe and Paradigm, Tempo aims to bring low‑latency, compliance‑forward settlement to merchants and platforms—an approach that could leverage Stripe’s distribution and risk tooling. The round’s depth, with Sequoia, Ribbit, and SV Angel participating, underscores renewed top‑tier venture conviction in stablecoin infrastructure as enterprise adoption accelerates.

Strategically, a Stripe‑aligned chain pressures general‑purpose L1/L2s competing for payment flows and raises the bar on regulatory alignment and KYC/AML‑ready rails. For issuers like Circle and corporate efforts such as PYUSD, the emergence of a purpose‑built payments network could influence routing, fee economics, and integration priorities. With Matt Huang leading the project, Tempo blends crypto‑native design with institutional GTM, positioning for merchant‑grade throughput and reliability.

If execution matches the cap table, expect faster merchant integrations, more direct on‑chain settlement experiments, and tighter coupling between fintech payment processors and stablecoin networks.