Kraken’s parent company, Payward Inc., has agreed to acquire Reap Technologies for $600 million. The deal combines cash and Payward stock. The stock portion is priced at a company valuation of $20 billion, according to Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi.
Reap is a Hong Kong-based financial technology company founded in 2018 by Daren Guo, who previously built Stripe’s Asia Pacific business, and Kevin Kang, a former investment banker.
It connects traditional payment systems with digital assets, offering corporate cards, cross-border payments, and stablecoin-enabled transactions to businesses. In 2025, Reap processed billions in stablecoin-funded transaction flows. Reap nearly tripled revenue and volumes in 2025. The company had raised about $60 million before the deal and was already profitable in 2025.
Reap deal is Payward’s first infrastructure acquisition in Asia, Sethi said. After closing, Reap will keep its brand and operate independently, with Guo continuing as CEO.
“If you take Europe out, the fastest growing market is Asia, not just revenue but also asset-on-platform,” Sethi said. “They have already done it in Asia. They can expand into the US overnight with us.”
The deal is expected to produce new business-to-business products, including card issuance and stablecoin payments, according to Sethi.
Reap holds regulatory approvals in multiple jurisdictions. In October 2025, Reap’s Singapore entity received a Major Payment Institution (MPI) license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). The MPI license, issued under Singapore’s Payment Services Act, covers cross-border money transfers and merchant acquisition, among other activities. The Payward-Reap transaction remains subject to regulatory approval in Hong Kong and Singapore.
“Joining Payward was a natural step to accelerate the future of finance and build category-disrupting offerings in web3, agentic commerce and more.”
Daren Guo, Co-Founder and CEO of Reap
The Reap deal is part of a broader series of purchases by Payward. In April 2026, the company announced an agreement to acquire crypto derivatives exchange Bitnomial for up to $550 million. In 2025, it acquired trading platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion. Payward also filed confidentially for an initial public offering for its crypto exchange business Kraken late last year.
In 2026, Payward launched a business-to-business infrastructure platform providing stablecoin payments, digital asset trading, lending, and related services to banks, fintechs, brokerages, and businesses paid in cryptocurrency.
“Finance is moving in one direction. Continuous markets. Programmable money. Autonomous execution. Stablecoins are the settlement substrate. AI agents are the new participants,” said Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward. “Reap is the payments layer for what comes next. Card networks, banking rails, and blockchains on a single API, settling in stablecoins. The infrastructure for that world has to be open, regulated, and operational at global scale on Day 1.”
PJT Partners advised Payward on the transaction. CRB Securities and Goldman Sachs advised Reap. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to customary regulatory approvals.
