Paradigm leads $82m raise for crypto payments firm Mesh

Crypto payments network Mesh has closed $82 million in a funding round led by venture capital firm Paradigm.

Mesh said in a press release that it raised $82 million in its Series B funding round.

Venture capital firm Paradigm led the financing round, which attracted the participation of Consensys, QuantumLight Capital and Yolo Investments, and brought the decentralized platform’s total raise to $120 million. 

The funding will go into expanding the payment network’s solution across the globe, with stablecoin adoption a major part of the company’s goal.

Simply, Mesh plans to bring crypto payments and stablecoin settlements to any merchant, with the target being to make it easier for cryptocurrency holders to pay with any crypto, while merchants have the benefit of faster and seamless stablecoin settlements.

In this case, a user can pay with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) or Solana (SOL).

Mesh’s technology will see the merchant receive the payment in a stablecoins such as PayPal USD (PYUSD). Payments will auto convert to the supported stablecoin.

“Stablecoins present the single biggest opportunity to disrupt the payments industry since the invention of credit and debit cards, and Mesh is now first in line to scale that vision across the world,” Bam Azizi, chief executive officer and co-founder of Mesh, said.

The crypto payments platform, founded in 2020, connects hundreds of exchanges, wallets and financial services providers. Its footprint in the ecosystem includes key partnerships with MetaMask, Shift4 and Revolut.

Mesh has also partnered with India-based crypto exchange CoinCDX, crypto wallet Conio and Turkey-based crypto platform Paribu.

In a notable development, Mesh’s funding round saw most of the VC injection settle in PayPal USD, the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin backed by PayPal and issued by Paxos. PYUSD offered the venture capital firms benefits of stablecoins, including instant settlement, transparency and 24/7 support.

PayPal backed Mesh via a PYUSD investment in January 2024.