Squid, a cross-chain infrastructure platform that evolved from incubation within the Axelar ecosystem into an independent platform, has raised $6 million in strategic funding to launch a new consumer-facing product. North Island Ventures led the round, with Ripple, Dialectic, and Borderless also participating. The round closed recently after coming together over the past few months, according to Squid's pseudonymous co-founder Fig. This funding brings Squid's total capital raised to $13.5 million, building on a $3.5 million seed round in 2023 and a $4 million strategic round in 2024. The platform has processed more than $6 billion in volume through more than 4 million transactions across over 100 blockchain networks since launching in 2023, serving more than 1 million users through its own app and partner integrations spanning wallets, decentralized finance applications, payments, and agentic commerce.
Investor Participation
Angel investors joined the round alongside the lead and strategic backers. These included Georgios Vlachos, Axelar co-founder and former director; Connor Howe, Enso Finance founder; and Dan Lynch, Constructive founder. Fig declined to disclose the round's structure, Squid's valuation, or whether any investors received board, advisory, or observer seats.
Platform Security and Operations
Squid has completed nine independent security audits to date and has recorded no exploits while maintaining 99.99% uptime. The platform currently operates a web-based bridge-and-swap application and is preparing a broader consumer product built on its routing and settlement infrastructure. Squid's existing application allows users to move assets across different blockchain ecosystems, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, and the XRP Ledger, in a single transaction.
Squid serves as the official bridge partner for the XRP Ledger, operates a validator on the network, and participates in governance. On the agentic commerce side, Squid launched an adapter for Tempo's Machine Payments Protocol on launch day and has developed a model context protocol integration that allows AI agents to execute cross-chain swaps.
Revenue Model and Roadmap
Squid currently generates revenue through enterprise services and ecosystem partnerships, with plans to introduce transaction fees, though the timing depends on upcoming product milestones, Fig said. "The vision is to make directly accessing whatever you need in crypto as simple as the cross-chain swaps Squid already handles today," Fig stated.
Squid expects to share more about its consumer roadmap in the coming months. The platform's team currently consists of around 20 people, and it is not currently hiring, Fig said.
