Squads Secures $18M in Strategic Funding to Expand Stablecoin-Based Financial OS

Squads just raised $18M in strategic funding, led by Solana Ventures, with Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, L1D, Collab+Currency, Electric Capital, Placeholder, Jump Crypto, and Robot Ventures joining the table. Total raised now sits at $42.9M. Not exactly loose change from the couch cushions.

Founded in 2021 by Stepan Simkin (Co-Founder & CEO), Sean Ganser (Co-Founder), and Deni Ershtukaev (Co-Founder), Squads came out of the Solana Season Hackathon and kept building while the market did what markets do: scream, wobble, pretend it knew the plan all along. The company is based in New York, with team members across the US, Europe, UAE, and Asia, plus hubs forming in Paris and Dubai.

The real story is not just the raise. It is what Squads has quietly assembled underneath it. Squads Protocol secures more than $15B in assets, has processed over $5B in stablecoin transfers, and is trusted by more than 450 teams and thousands of individuals. That is not a pitch deck metric. That is infrastructure with fingerprints on the machinery.

Altitude, Squads’ financial operating system, has already processed more than $200M in payments since publicly launching in December 2025. Multi-currency accounts, corporate cards, global payments, APY on balances, CFO tools, stablecoin settlement, and traditional rails through licensed payment providers like Bridge, MoonPay, Infinite, and Due. Banks built velvet ropes. Squads brought the side door, the API, and a better clipboard.

That is why this round matters. Stablecoins are not just crypto’s favorite cocktail party topic anymore. They are becoming operating rails for companies that need speed, global reach, and fewer theatrical fees dressed up as “processing.” Exporters, global agencies, crypto-native teams, and remote-first companies do not need another financial maze. They need Altitude.

Stepan Simkin (Co-Founder & CEO) said it plainly: businesses are better off running on stablecoins than on legacy banking infrastructure. It sounds obvious until you realize how many companies are still wiring money like it is 1998, paying for delays, currency friction, and systems that were not designed for a borderless economy.

Squads is not pitching the future. It is sitting in the middle of it, clearing transactions, securing billions, and turning stablecoins into something less theoretical and more operational. Capital tends to follow that kind of gravity.