Stripe Acqui-Hires Valora Team, Deepens Stablecoin Push
Stripe has acqui-hired the core team behind Valora, the popular Celo mobile wallet, and the app's intellectual property is being returned to cLabs. The personnel hire gives Stripe direct access to mobile wallet and stablecoin engineering talent, supporting its strategy to make stablecoins a practical settlement and on‑ramp option for merchants and payment flows.
For the Celo ecosystem, cLabs regaining Valora's IP means the wallet codebase can be maintained, forked, or handed to community stewards while Stripe focuses on integrating stablecoin rails into its product stack. The transaction highlights a broader industry pattern: large payments firms absorbing developer talent to speed crypto features, even as open-source projects retain custodianship of user-facing apps. Market watchers should look for Stripe integration announcements and cLabs’ roadmap for Valora continuity and updates.