A high-profile project launched by fintech giant Stripe and crypto VC firm Paradigm has just made its first venture bet. On Friday, Tempo, a payments-focused blockchain, announced it’s led a $25 million fundraise for the crypto infrastructure company Commonware. As part of the arrangement, the Stripe-backed project will work with Commonware to develop methods to process blockchain payments more quickly, Paradigm general partner and CTO Georgios Konstantopoulos said in a blog post.
Patrick O’Grady, founder of Commonware, declined to name other participants in the fundraise for his startup, which develops open-source code to allow others to launch their own blockchains. O’Grady also declined to disclose the valuation for his firm following the Tempo-led raise, but said it was a “significant increase” over the valuation in Commonware’s seed round, which Pitchbook reports as $63 million.
“Usage and distribution is way more important than money as a startup,” he told Fortune. “If we can short circuit that process and have a deep relationship, multi-year relationship, with a great team, instead of raising maybe a traditional round from a venture fund, that was the opportunity that Tempo presented.”
High-speed payments
Tempo’s investment into Commonware isn’t its first splashy move since Stripe and Paradigm officially unveiled the project in September. The payments-focused blockchain company has acquired the crypto startup Ithaca and hired Dankrad Feist, a high-profile researcher who contributed to the development of the Ethereum blockchain. Tempo has also increased its headcount from around five employees in August to now between 40 and 50, according to a person familiar with the company, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private business information.
It’s rare for a startup to make an acquisition, a big hire, and significant investment so early on since it launched, but Tempo has the backing of some of the biggest names in tech and crypto. Stripe is a payments goliath that’s worth more than $100 billion. Paradigm is one of the top venture capital firms in crypto. And Tempo’s design partners include heavyweights like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Shopify.
The Stripe-linked startup also has a hefty war chest. It’s raised $500 million at a $5 billion valuation from some of the top VCs in Silicon Valley, including Thrive Capital, Greenoaks, Sequoia, and Ribbit Capital, Fortune first reported.
“We think that they’re going to do just as good of a job, or better, showing off what Commonware can do than what we can do,” said O’Grady, the founder of Commonware, in reference to Tempo.
Founded in 2024, Commonware has only seven employees (including O’Grady) and four customers, but it’s already profitable, he said. It makes money through helping companies deploy as well as interface with its open-source software, and each customer on average generates more than $1 million in annual revenue. “We have now a bit of a backlog of people that want to work with us,” O’Grady added.
