Visa crypto veteran Pete Cooling launches Atum with $13.5M

Why it matters

Cooling is betting stablecoin fragmentation creates room for an independent routing layer. Atum's neutrality is credible by design; its harder task is recruiting enough payment demand and settlement liquidity to make that design useful.

Pete Cooling (@PeteCooling) launched Atum, a payments infrastructure company, on September 22nd with $13.5 million in funding.

The former head of Visa's crypto product team has spent roughly a decade working on blockchain payment systems. Cooling also represented Visa at the OpenWallet Foundation, the Linux Foundation project developing interoperable components for digital wallets.

"This is my life's work," Cooling said in Atum's launch announcement distributed through PR Newswire. He dates the underlying thesis to 2014, when he concluded that blockchains would develop into payment networks and onchain accounts would begin taking on functions associated with bank accounts.

Atum's financing came from Variant, PayPal Ventures, Abstract Ventures, Road Capital, Mirana Ventures, First Commit and Credibly Neutral, alongside strategic adviser Charlie Songhurst (@charlie). Atum described the capital as $13.5 million of funding without assigning a round name, identifying a lead investor or giving a valuation.

A marketplace for settlement

Atum's product separates payment instructions from the infrastructure that ultimately moves the funds. A developer, payment provider or enterprise submits a request describing what the sender will provide and what the recipient expects to receive. Atum checks the request against the user's rules, while independent settlement operators submit competing quotes to complete it.

The selected operator delivers the funds on the receiving network. Atum then provides confirmation for the origin and destination. Cooling's design leaves operators in control of their liquidity, pricing, credentials and risk policies, according to Atum's settlement documentation.

Atum says it does not issue a currency, operate a blockchain, hold customer keys, take custody of funds or favor a particular rail. That places Atum between the companies initiating payments and the providers capable of settling them across chains and currencies. Atum is betting that competition between those providers can produce better routes and prices without forcing payment companies to integrate each one separately.

Cooling is also building for software agents. Atum says it supports x402 and MPP, two protocols designed to let software initiate payments, and has published reference implementations on GitHub for accepting and making payments with both.

The public product is still in early access

Atum's public developer materials put useful boundaries around the launch. The reference repository describes itself as the source of truth during early access and directs new developers to begin with simulated payments before trying a hosted test network.

The path Atum describes as hardened for its preview moves test assets between Base Sepolia and Tempo's Moderato network. Atum says other corridors are present in the platform, while mainnet access requires production endpoints supplied by Atum and authorization to use them.

That is a narrower starting point than Atum's broad pitch for global money movement. Atum says humans and software agents are already completing payments, though the announcement supplies no transaction count, payment volume, revenue figure or named customer. The public materials establish that Atum has working developer infrastructure and test settlements. Commercial usage at network scale remains the test Cooling has raised money to pursue.

Neutrality is the product

Atum's claim that it has built the world's first open payments network is Atum's own positioning. Other providers have already introduced networks meant to connect stablecoin payment participants.

Circle announced Circle Payments Network on April 21st, 2025, connecting financial institutions for cross-border settlement using USDC, EURC and other regulated stablecoins. Fireblocks launched its Network for Payments on September 4th, 2025, offering payment providers access to banks, liquidity firms, stablecoin issuers and local rails through a common integration.

Atum's distinction is its refusal to own the assets or settlement services moving through the network. Circle issues stablecoins. Fireblocks provides wallets, custody and other digital-asset infrastructure. Atum says it will remain the coordination protocol while independent participants compete for each transaction.

Variant had publicly laid out much of this investment thesis before Atum emerged. In an August 11th, 2025 essay, the venture firm argued that stablecoin adoption would produce isolated payment systems requiring an open, neutral network to connect them. The essay singled out Atum's approach and thanked Cooling for contributing feedback. Variant's investment follows a thesis it had already attached to Cooling's design.

Cooling still has to build both sides

A payment network becomes useful when it has enough demand from payment initiators and enough liquidity from settlement operators. At launch, Atum named its investors rather than its payment participants. Cooling now has to persuade card issuers, wallets, fintechs and enterprises to route requests through Atum while recruiting operators willing to quote those payments across different assets and jurisdictions.

Atum's non-custodial structure may reduce direct conflicts with participants, but the launch materials do not disclose how licensing, compliance and counterparty responsibilities are allocated across the network. Atum's value will depend on whether its rules, identity functions, authorization process and confirmations make that coordination easier to manage.

Stablecoins have multiplied the possible routes without giving businesses a universal way to use them. Atum has $13.5 million to prove that the missing piece is a network willing to coordinate everyone while owning as little of the transaction as possible.