Tether leads $15m round in Mural to build payment rails for AI agents that spend money

Tether has led a $15 million Series A round in Mural, a New York fintech building the payment infrastructure that lets AI agents move money within spending limits and compliance rules.

The October 20 round, which also included North Island Ventures, lifts Mural’s total funding to $28 million. The company says it has processed $2.1 billion across 128 countries since launching its API in 2025.

Tether backs Mural as funding reaches $28 million

Founded in 2022 by former Palantir engineers Sinclair Toffa and Chris Fernandes, Mural develops financial technology that connects businesses to banking networks, blockchain-based payment systems and compliance services.

The company’s platform helps businesses manage accounts, payment instructions and identity verification across different financial systems. Through a unified infrastructure, customers can support payments involving US dollars, local currencies and stablecoins without maintaining entirely separate systems for each payment method.

Mural counts global payroll provider Deel, browser developer Opera and fintech platform Axexo among its customers. Since launching its application programming interface (API) in 2025, the company says it has processed $2.1 billion in payments across 128 countries. Its payment volume recorded during 2026 has already approached six times the total reported for 2025, according to the company’s announcement.

The latest financing gives Mural additional resources to scale its services as demand grows for infrastructure supporting automated financial activity. The company has not disclosed its valuation following the Series A round.

Mural chief executive Sinclair Toffa framed the opportunity around the potential expansion of software-driven economic activity.

“The economy is about to gain 10 billion new participants, and none of them are human,” Toffa said in the announcement.

His statement reflects the company’s ambition to extend financial services beyond conventional business accounts and human customers to software systems that can perform tasks on behalf of people and organizations.

How Mural is building payment infrastructure for AI agents

An AI agent can perform tasks with limited human intervention, but allowing one to initiate financial transactions introduces practical challenges. Businesses need to control how much software can spend, which recipients it can pay and when a transaction must receive additional authorization.

Mural is developing infrastructure intended to address those requirements. Its tools can support spending limits, approved counterparties and additional authorization for transactions that exceed established thresholds. These controls help organizations define the boundaries within which automated systems can operate.

This approach makes AI agent payment more than a question of enabling software to send money. It also involves connecting automated decision-making to existing financial institutions, transaction records and regulatory safeguards.

Mural’s infrastructure is designed to bring banking services, payment networks and blockchain-based systems together, giving businesses a consolidated way to manage financial activity across different channels.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino highlighted this connection between emerging automation and established financial systems when explaining the investment.

“As agents start moving money, that connection to the banks, payment networks and compliance systems the world still runs on becomes essential,” Ardoino said.

Mural is not itself a bank. Its payment services operate through Mural Networks, a money services business registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and through U.S. banking partners where applicable. The distinction matters because software-driven transactions still depend on regulated financial infrastructure, even when the instructions originate from an automated system.

Deel’s head of payments, Olek Shtanoprud, also praised Mural’s engineering team for its understanding of local payment conditions and collaboration with Deel’s team in Colombia.

For businesses operating internationally, that local expertise can be important when connecting payment systems across jurisdictions with different banking arrangements and regulatory requirements.

Tether broadens its AI investment strategy

Mural’s funding comes amid a wider push by Tether into artificial intelligence and the infrastructure surrounding automated digital services.

On October 15, Tether Capital announced an investment in AIsa, a company developing technology that gives AI agents access to paid software, data and computing resources. The investment brought AIsa’s total funding above $9 million, according to previous reporting by crypto.news.

The two companies address different parts of the emerging market. AIsa focuses on enabling automated systems to purchase digital services, while Mural supplies financial infrastructure that fintech platforms can use to manage accounts, payments and compliance. Neither company has announced an integration between their platforms.

Tether also participated in Tenstorrent’s $1.5 billion Series E financing, announced on October 20. The round valued the AI computing company at $6.2 billion. Tenstorrent develops processors, computing systems and software designed for artificial intelligence workloads.

The investments illustrate Tether’s interest in multiple layers of the AI ecosystem, spanning computing hardware, autonomous software and financial services. Its investment in Mural specifically targets the systems needed to connect automated activity with established payment networks.

As companies experiment with software that can make purchases and carry out business tasks, AI agent payment infrastructure could become an important component of how these systems interact with the global economy. However, wider adoption will depend on businesses’ willingness to delegate financial tasks, the reliability of automated decision-making and the ability of providers to meet regulatory obligations across markets.

Mural recently dropped “Pay” from its former name, Mural Pay. In an October 14 statement, Toffa said the rebrand would not change the company’s team, licences or compliance arrangements.

The new funding will help Mural expand that existing foundation while developing services for businesses deploying autonomous software. Its reported payment volume offers evidence of existing activity across international markets, although it does not establish how much of that volume is generated by AI agents specifically.

For Tether, the bet is on financial infrastructure that can serve both conventional customers and a potential new class of software-driven participants. Whether that market reaches the scale envisioned by Mural’s founders will depend on how securely and effectively AI systems can be authorised to move real money.