Stripe has acquired the team behind Celo‑native wallet Valora excluding the app itself to bolster its stablecoin services.

In an announcement today, Valora’s leadership confirmed that the entire Valora team is moving to Stripe in an acqui-hire that will fold the startup’s web3 and mobile expertise into the payments giant’s fast-growing stablecoin and crypto division.

Importantly, the Valora app itself is not shutting down. Instead, it will return to its original home at cLabs—the team behind the Celo blockchain—from which Valora originally spun out in 2021. cLabs will take over stewardship and future development of the consumer wallet.

The deal represents Stripe’s second major crypto talent acquisition in 2025 and underscores the company’s full-throated commitment to stablecoins as core internet infrastructure. With Valora’s team on board—known for building one of the simplest and most trusted self-custodial wallets in emerging markets—Stripe is expected to accelerate consumer-facing stablecoin products that blend the ease of Venmo with the global reach of USDC and other dollar-pegged assets.

Stripe has not disclosed financial terms of the transaction.

For users of the Valora app, day-to-day functionality is expected to remain unchanged in the near term, with cLabs reaffirming its commitment to the product’s millions of users, particularly across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia where Valora has become a popular on-ramp to digital dollars.