Atum launches a cross-rail payments network with $13.5 million

Atum emerged from stealth on 22 September with $13.5 million from investors including Variant and PayPal Ventures. It describes its product as a coordination layer connecting payment companies, developers and businesses across currencies, blockchains and local rails. Atum says it does not issue a currency, operate a blockchain, take custody of customer funds or favour a specific settlement rail.

Applications can submit payment requests, after which settlement providers compete to fulfil them across supported chains and stablecoins. Atum says the network handles authorisation, routing and confirmation, with reversible payments and identity features. Its announcement says both conventional and agent-driven stablecoin payments are already using the service. Those operating and adoption claims come from the company. The business model is described as volume-based, making the network’s longer-term role dependent on whether external providers and businesses adopt the routing layer.