Meso: Simplifying Crypto Payments with $9.5M Seed Round

Meso, a Web3 payments platform, has secured a $9.5 million seed round led by Solana Ventures and Rabbit Capital, including 6MV, and others.

Launched with a seed round of $9.5 million sponsored by Solana Ventures and Rabbit Capital, Meso is a Web3 payments platform that was formed by executives from PayPal, Braintree, and Venmo. Additionally, 6MV and Canonical Crypto were involved in the fundraising, while individual investors included Phantom creator Chris Kalani, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready, and Bodhi Labs’ Archie Purri.

The release states that Meso is developing a platform for cryptocurrency payments that integrates centralized apps with bank accounts. Using more conventional means of purchase and sale, the business aspires to facilitate the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies for consumers who are not crypto natives.

Meso CEO and co-founder Ben Mills told Fortune that the company’s crypto software, which functions similarly to a self-custodial wallet or a centralized exchange, can now be designed to allow users to easily add and remove funds from their wallet.

This idea paves the way for cryptocurrency apps to accept new users without directing them to a central exchange for wallet funding. If we want more people to start using cryptocurrencies, Mills says we need to make it easier for them to join the sector.

“Frankly, it’s better for everyone,” Mills remarked, referring to a solution that lets you keep the person where they are.

Generating long-term interest from users is a major obstacle for cryptocurrency apps. People who aren’t crypto natives don’t utilize decentralized finance (DeFi) apps very often because of how complicated it is to create a crypto wallet, exchange coins, and transfer them across networks.

But the co-founders of Meso are bringing their expertise from PayPal and Venmo to bridge the gap between Fintech/TradFi and the DeFi ecosystem in order to solve the problem.

According to Mills, Meso is looking forward to a day when customers may begin investing in cryptocurrency without going via centralized exchanges.

Cross River Bank, a regional crypto-friendly bank and issuer of the USDC stablecoin, has already partnered with Meso. Cross River Bank has a history of working with Circle. Users will save money because the service charges a little fee of 1.5% when they move funds from their bank accounts to cryptocurrency wallets.

Statement by Justin Saslaw of Ribbit Capital: “[Meso’s] work on seamless fiat-blockchain transactions is helping to create a ubiquitous payment platform, connecting disparate parts of the financial grid.”