TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington says payments giant Stripe has completed the acquisition of stablecoin startup Bridge.
In an X post referencing a report about Stripe’s discussions to acquire Bridge, the tech publication executive says the $1.1 billion purchase of Bridge is a done deal.
A Bloomberg report last week indicated that Stripe had been in talks to acquire the stablecoin firm, which offers a product that lets enterprises use stablecoins USDT and USDC to receive and send payments.
The report indicated that Bridge had raised $58 million in startup funding from investors that included Sequoia and Haun Ventures, a crypto-focused venture capital firm founded three years ago by former Coinbase board member Katie Haun. Bridge raised $40 million in its most recent Sequoia-led Series A round.
Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge comes a little over a week since the payments company announced it would offer global support for settlements by merchants using the USDC stablecoin over two layer-1 blockchains and one layer-2 solution.
At the time, Stripe’s head of products, Jeff Weinstein, said,
“Okay, crypto on Stripe is officially back!
Accept stablecoins from 150+ countries
Buyers pay in USDC (via Ethereum, Solana, Polygon)
You, as a USA business, receive USD
Works with checkout, elements, or payment intents (and soon subscriptions).
We’re rolling this out to hundreds of thousands of USA businesses today (then more countries).”
Stripe’s initial foray into supporting crypto payments started with Bitcoin, an effort that was ended in 2018 allegedly over BTC’s lack of utility as a means of payment.
Generated Image: Midjourney