Meso Raises $9.5M Seed Round for Crypto On-Ramp Platform

Meso, a Web3 payments platform founded by former PayPal, Braintree and Venmo executives, has raised $9.5 million in a seed round led by Solana Ventures and Rabbit Capital. The fundraising also attracted participation from Canonical Crypto and 6MV, with individual investors including Phantom cofounder Chris Kalani, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready and Bodhi Labs’ Archie Purri. Meso aims to build a crypto payments platform that connects bank accounts with decentralised applications, making it easier for non-crypto native users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using traditional methods. The company has already partnered with a crypto-friendly regional bank and USDC stablecoin issuer Cross River Bank, and will charge a modest fee of 1.5% for fund transfers between bank accounts and cryptocurrency wallets.