Tether Leads $15M Round to Fund Mural's AI Payments

Tether leads $15M Series A to accelerate AI agent payments

Tether has led a $15 million Series A investment in New York-based Mural, injecting capital into the fintech startup as it builds payment infrastructure for businesses and autonomous AI agents. The financing pushes Mural's total raised to $28 million and aims to scale cross-border banking, stablecoin rails, and compliance tooling that let software agents move money securely on behalf of organizations.

According to Mural's October 20 announcement, North Island Ventures and existing backers also participated in the round. The company plans to use the fresh funding to expand internationally, deepen bank and payment network integrations, and enhance identity, KYC, and AML controls for automated payments.

Key takeaways

• Tether led a $15M Series A for Mural, taking total funding to $28M.
• Mural has processed $2.1 billion in payments across 128 countries since launching its API in 2025.
• Funding will expand international operations and build payments, banking and compliance services for AI agents.
• Tether has also invested in other AI and payments infrastructure firms, including AIsa and Tenstorrent.

What Mural builds: bridging banks, stablecoins and compliance

Founded in 2022 by former Palantir engineers Sinclair Toffa and Chris Fernandes, Mural provides a payments and account management platform that connects traditional banking rails with blockchain-based stablecoins and enterprise compliance systems. The company lets businesses offer accounts that hold dollars, local fiat currencies and stablecoins without operating separate stacks for each payment channel.

Mural's API, introduced in 2025, gives fintechs, payroll companies and other enterprises a unified ledger of activity across bank transfers, card networks and on-chain stablecoin flows. Clients include payroll provider Deel, browser developer Opera, and fintech platform Axexo. Mural reports it has processed $2.1 billion in payments spanning 128 countries, with 2026 volumes accelerating nearly sixfold compared with 2025.

How the platform supports AI-driven payments

Mural is building the controls and permissions that let software agents — autonomous programs that can execute tasks on behalf of users and organizations — initiate, authorize and settle transactions. Features include account-level spending limits, whitelisted counterparties, multi-step authorization for high-value transfers, and an auditable compliance trail across both off-chain and on-chain settlements.

These capabilities let businesses program rules for AI agents: which vendors they can pay, the maximum amount per transaction, required approvals, and which currency rails to use. That consolidated approach is designed to operate across bank APIs, payment networks and blockchain systems while preserving a consistent KYC/AML record for regulators and auditors.

Regulatory posture and partnerships

Mural itself is not a bank. It operates payment services through Mural Networks, a FinCEN-registered money services business, and leverages federally chartered U.S. banking partners and local payment providers where needed. The company emphasizes compliance-first integrations, building localized payment expertise to support global customers and meet regional regulatory requirements.

Deel’s head of payments, Olek Shtanoprud, highlighted Mural’s on-the-ground engineering support, noting the team’s understanding of local payment rails in markets such as Colombia. Mural engineers often work directly with enterprise clients to implement market-specific integrations and ensure smooth cross-border settlement.

Why Tether invested: stablecoins, bank links and AI momentum

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said Mural’s experience connecting enterprise software to stablecoin payment services and traditional banks was a major factor in the decision to lead the round. As AI agents become capable of transacting on behalf of businesses, Ardoino argued, strong links between payment networks, banks and compliance systems will be essential to scale automated commerce securely.

For Tether, the investment complements a wider strategy of backing infrastructure that supports automated payments and AI. Earlier in October, Tether Capital invested in AIsa, a company enabling AI agents to buy paid software, data, and compute services, and joined a financing round for Tenstorrent, an AI compute and processor company. These moves show Tether's interest across the AI value chain: payment rails, autonomous purchasing agents, and compute platforms.

How this fits into a larger AI payments ecosystem

Investments in Mural and other startups signal a push toward an ecosystem where autonomous agents can source services, pay vendors, and settle across a mix of fiat and crypto rails. Mural focuses on the plumbing — the account abstractions, authorization logic, and compliance records — that enable safe, auditable transactions initiated by software rather than humans.

While AIsa works on enabling automated purchases of digital services and Tenstorrent focuses on the underlying compute, Mural is positioning itself as the payments layer that enforces corporate policy and regulatory controls. Together, these pieces could enable enterprise-grade automated procurement, subscription management, and B2B payments involving stablecoins and traditional currency rails.

Outlook and implications for crypto and fintech

The new capital will let Mural scale its global footprint and deepen integrations with banks and payment networks, accelerating product features for AI agent authorization, fraud prevention, and regulatory reporting. For the broader crypto industry, the investment highlights growing institutional interest in using stablecoins and blockchain rails for real-world business payments, provided solid compliance and bank partnerships are in place.

Mural recently rebranded from Mural Pay; the leadership says this change does not affect its team, licenses, or compliance arrangements. As AI adoption spreads across enterprise workflows, the company expects to expand its role as the intermediary that allows organizations to let software act on their behalf without sacrificing financial controls or regulatory transparency.

For crypto and fintech audiences, Mural's progress will be worth watching as it brings together bank-grade compliance, blockchain settlement, and programmable transaction controls tailored for autonomous agents and AI-driven commerce.