Feb. 22: Meso, a payment platform connecting banks and blockchains, announced it has raised $9.5 million in a seed round, co-led by Solana Ventures and Ribbit Capital, with participation from 6th Man Ventures, Canonical Crypto, Phantom Co-Founder Chris Kalani, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready and Archie Puri of Bodhi Labs. According to the team, “the network was launched by veterans from PayPal, Venmo and Braintree. Apps can integrate Meso to onboard users without first sending them off to a centralized exchange to fund their wallets.” Meso currently supports Ethereum, Solana and Polygon, and will add Arbitrum, Optimism and Base by the end of Q1.