The blockchain developer Polygon Labs has closed deals to buy the crypto startups Coinme and Sequence. The total purchase price for the two startups was for more than $250 million, but Polygon Labs declined to disclose how much it paid for each, or whether the deals were for cash, equity, or a mix of both.
The acquisitions are meant to aid the blockchain network’s stablecoin strategy, said Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron and Polygon Foundation founder Sandeep Nailwal in an interview. The Seattle-based Coinme, which specializes in converting cash into crypto and is known for its work with crypto ATMs, has a suite of money transmitter licenses in the U.S. Meanwhile, New York-based Sequence builds out blockchain infrastructure, including crypto wallets.
Polygon Labs’ acquisitions of the two startups puts it in competition with the fintech giant Stripe, said Nailwal. Over the past year, the payments giant bought a stablecoin startup, a crypto wallet firm, and backed its own blockchain focused on payments. The Stripe acquisitions signalled an intention to own every layer of the stablecoin stack, from the servers that process payments to the accounts where users hold crypto.
“It’s a reverse Stripe in a way,” Nailwal said of Polygon’s stablecoin play. Stripe first acquired its stablecoin startups and then built out its own blockchain. In contrast, Polygon already has a longstanding network of blockchains, and it’s bringing on startups to build on top of it. “Polygon Labs is becoming a full-blown fintech company,” said Nailwal.
