Tether Leads $15 Million Series A in Palantir-Alumni Startup Mural

By Daniel Okafor

Tether has led a $15 million Series A in Mural, a New York payments startup founded by two former Palantir engineers. The round, announced Tuesday, brings Mural's total funding to $28 million and signals Tether's bet that AI agents will soon move money on their own.

Mural, cofounded by Sinclair Toffa and Chris Fernandes in 2022, builds a single account for businesses that holds traditional dollars, local currencies and stablecoins. Customers include payroll providers, software companies and fintechs. North Island Ventures also joined the Series A. Mural declined to disclose its valuation.

"[We are] building this… compliant system of record that allows for businesses and fintechs to launch new financial products on top of us," Toffa, Mural's CEO, said.

Why are stablecoin payments attracting this money?

The stablecoin boom promised faster, cheaper cross-border commerce. Delivering that promise is harder. Businesses still juggle banks, payment providers and a patchwork of regulations.

The numbers explain the investor interest. Stablecoin payments reached roughly $400 billion in the first eight months of 2026, up from the same period a year earlier, according to a report from consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal. Cross-border stablecoin flows totaled $220 billion from July 2025 through June 2026, up nearly 78% from the previous 12 months, per blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.

Stablecoins, typically designed to track the U.S. dollar, move across borders in seconds. Network fees sometimes cost only pennies.

What is Tether's larger bet?

Tether, the issuer of USDT, sees the Mural investment as more than a payments play. CEO Paolo Ardoino framed it as a wager on AI agents becoming regular handlers of financial services.

"Those agents will need access to payment systems that operate around the clock and can reach people across the world," Ardoino told Fortune in a written statement.

That logic points to infrastructure. Autonomous software agents cannot open bank branches or file compliance paperwork. They need programmable rails that run continuously. Mural positions itself as those rails.

How did Palantir shape the founders?

Toffa's interest in payments began at 15, on a visit to Togo, his grandfather's home country. His relatives there received remittances from his father in the United States. Transfers could take weeks to arrive and cost as much as 20% in fees.

The experience stuck. Toffa later studied computer science at Duke University, where he grew interested in blockchain and smart contracts. In 2018, he joined Palantir's London office as a software engineer. His job: visiting large companies to connect computer systems that could not easily share information.

He said that work shaped Mural, where businesses face a similar problem connecting banks, payment providers and stablecoins.

Toffa met Fernandes at Palantir. The two became roommates. When Toffa pitched his idea for Mural, Fernandes joined quickly, and both left their jobs to build the company.

The founders named it Mural as a nod to communities painting stories together—and a metaphor for businesses building financial services on shared software.

What comes next?

Mural plans to spend the new funds on building out its platform. The company runs a lean operation: 30 employees across its New York headquarters, offices in Denver and Bogotá, and remote staff in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Mexico.

The funding history is compact. A $5 million seed round came in 2022, followed by pre-seed and interim financing from earlier backers. The Series A now gives Mural the capital to chase a payments market where cross-border stablecoin volume is growing at 78% a year. If AI agents start handling payments as Ardoino predicts, companies holding compliant accounts for both dollars and stablecoins will be first in line to serve them.