Cyclops, a stablecoin infrastructure company built solely for the payments industry, has secured $20m in Series A funding to help payments firms launch stablecoin products at speed.
The round was led by Nava Ventures, with backing from Castle Island Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Circle, Lasagna Ventures and Global PayTech Ventures, the firm run by Javier Perez, the former Mastercard president and a founding investor in Adyen. Nava Ventures’ Kevin Chenault has taken a seat on the Cyclops board as part of the deal.
Although appetite for stablecoins across the payments sector is strong, firms have found it difficult to expand these initiatives while relying on legacy providers. Cyclops claims to address this by delivering a single, purpose-built platform covering everything a payments business needs, from settlement to pay-ins and payouts. Rather than piecing together several vendors, companies can work with one partner and launch offerings within weeks instead of months or years.
Founded by Alex Wilson, Pat Duffy and David Johnson, Cyclops positions itself as the only stablecoin infrastructure provider dedicated exclusively to payments businesses. The founders bring considerable industry pedigree. Wilson and Duffy previously created The Giving Block, a crypto fundraising platform for nonprofits that was later bought by Shift4, where the pair ran the crypto and stablecoin division for close to four years. Johnson, an international technology lawyer, designed the company’s distinctive global licensing strategy.
The business has built a merchant network of 300,000, pushed into new markets internationally, and increased volume by 350% month on month. Its team has reached 31 people in under a year, with headcount expected to double by the end of 2026. The fresh capital will be channelled into faster product development, expanding local teams and licensing, and scaling the go to market function.
Cyclops co-founder Alex Wilson said, “Stablecoins have reached an inflection point and their adoption has been accelerated by agentic commerce. Payments companies are uniquely positioned to benefit from the growth of stablecoins but have historically struggled to adopt the technology. Cyclops is here to change that.”
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