In a significant move to broaden its operational scope, MoonPay has announced its acquisition of Meso, a company specializing in payments infrastructure. This acquisition marks a strategic shift for MoonPay, a crypto on-ramp provider, as it aims to evolve into a comprehensive global payments network.
The announcement was made in a statement released on Tuesday. With this acquisition, two prominent figures from Meso will join MoonPay’s leadership team: Ali Aghareza will step into the role of chief technology officer, while Ben Mills will take on the position of senior vice president of product, leading the company’s global product organization.
Aghareza, a key player in the payments industry, was part of the original engineering team at Braintree—a company acquired by PayPal. Following that, he led engineering efforts at PayPal before co-founding Meso in 2022. Mills brings a wealth of experience from senior product roles at various well-known companies including Braintree, Venmo, and Solana, having previously been the head of developer experience at Braintree and head of product at Venmo.
Ivan Soto-Wright, MoonPay’s co-founder and CEO, expressed the company’s ambitious vision by stating, “We’ve built trusted ramps that brought millions into crypto, now we’re building the global network that will move money across every form and in every market.” This sentiment reflects MoonPay’s aim to evolve beyond merely facilitating cryptocurrency purchases with traditional payment methods to creating a unified structure that links banks, card networks, stablecoins, and blockchains—all operating under a single regulatory framework.
MoonPay is already operating under various licenses, including Money Transmitter Licenses, BitLicenses, and MiCA approval in Europe. The integration of Meso, along with previous acquisitions of Helio and Iron, is designed to contribute to what MoonPay calls a comprehensive payments ecosystem.
Meso has positioned itself as a vital infrastructure provider for fintech and crypto platforms that want to merge traditional and digital payment systems. Its technology focuses on connecting conventional financial structures to cryptocurrency networks, highlighting an increasing demand for seamless integration within financial services.
The acquisition also signals broader trends of consolidation within the crypto payments landscape, where companies are increasingly seeking to build more robust financial infrastructures. MoonPay’s transformation from a simple crypto on-ramp service to a full-fledged payments network mirrors similar strategies being adopted across the wider fintech sector.
While the financial specifics of the acquisition have not been disclosed, it is worth noting that MoonPay has raised substantial venture funding to back its growth initiatives, previously attaining a valuation of over $3 billion in private funding rounds. As the company gears up to expand its offerings, the integration of Meso’s technologies and leadership is poised to play a crucial role in shaping its future.
