Cyclops raises $20M Series A to bring stablecoin settlement to payment firms
What's the deal? Cyclops, a Miami-based startup, has raised $20 million in a Series A round to help payment companies integrate stablecoin infrastructure. Nava VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → led the round, with participation from Castle Island VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Coinbase Ventures, Circle VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Lasagna Ventures, and GPT VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
What's the endgame? Cyclops sells an all-in-one platform that bundles crypto and stablecoin services, letting payment companies offer faster settlement and cross-border transactions without building the tooling themselves. It orchestrates settlement, payouts, payment acceptance, and treasury through a single API.
Why now? Many payment providers still rely on legacy banking, so merchants and consumers wait on wire transfers that pause on weekends and outside banking hours. Stablecoins allow near-instant settlement, but the sector has been slow to adopt them.
The round follows an $8 million seed raised in March 2026. The company declined to disclose its valuation.
Track record: Cofounders Alex Wilson, Pat Duffy, and David Johnson previously built the Giving BlockDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a crypto philanthropy platform they sold to payments firm Shift4. There, Wilson worked on bringing stablecoin settlement to more than 300,000 merchants.
That background is central to investors' thesis. "They've lived and breathed the problem in payments and understand the gaps where stablecoin technology and infrastructure can really... innovate the way in which money is moved," said Nava Ventures partner Kevin Chenault.
Cyclops runs offices in Miami and Vienna, and has begun licensing processes in the US and Europe. Shift4 Payments and Mastercard are among its current clients, and its platform volume is growing 350% month over month.
The signal: Stablecoin market capitalisation has grown 137% since 2024, reaching nearly $310 billion, according to DefiLlama. With the GENIUS Act now setting a regulatory framework for US dollar-backed stablecoins, infrastructure that connects payment firms to that rail is drawing fresh capital. As GPT Ventures general partner Javier Pérez put it, "the more [a] stablecoin becomes popular, the faster it gets, the cheaper it gets, [and] the more ubiquitous it gets."
