Stablecoin Infrastructure Startup Raises $8M
Cyclops, a startup founded by payments industry veterans, has raised $8 million to build infrastructure connecting stablecoins with traditional payment rails. The team's repeat-founder status was reportedly a key factor in securing the capital.
The founding team of Pat Duffy, Alex Wilson, and David Johnson previously launched The Giving Block, a platform enabling nonprofits to accept cryptocurrency donations. That company was acquired by payments giant Shift4, where the trio then spent three years building crypto and stablecoin solutions internally. This latest $8 million funding round was a strategic investment led by Castle Island Ventures, with participation from F-Prime and the founders' previous acquirer, Shift4 Payments. Co-founder Alex Wilson noted that while at Shift4, they experienced firsthand how difficult it was to bring crypto products to market, needing multiple vendors and dedicated engineering teams for the task. Cyclops aims to solve this by offering a single, low-code platform for payment companies to handle stablecoin settlement, crypto payments, and digital asset payouts without building their own blockchain infrastructure. The goal is to provide an "out of the box" solution for a fragmented market. The Miami-based startup, which currently has around 20 employees, is already providing the underlying stablecoin technology for Shift4. This infrastructure supports payments for companies like the helicopter service Blade and Jeff Bezos's space exploration company, Blue Origin. Looking ahead, Cyclops plans to pursue partnerships with major payment and card networks, including Fiserv, Adyen, Global Payments, Visa, and Mastercard. The investment comes as the stablecoin market has surged from under $30 billion in 2020 to approximately $300 billion. While actual payment volume remains a small fraction of the global total, the key challenge Cyclops addresses is the complex integration with legacy financial systems and ensuring regulatory compliance.
