Squads Labs, the company that created the multisig system, has raised $5.7 million in a strategic investment round. Squads is situated in Solana Beach.
According to Squads Labs, Placeholder VC led the round, which also included Multicoin Capital, Solana Ventures, Jump Crypto, and other investors. The financing was also supported by angel investors such as Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs; Lucas Brude, CEO of Jito Labs; and Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius Labs.
Stepan Simkin, a co-founder of Squads Labs, informed The Block that this financing was an equity with token warrants transaction. On valuation, he opted not to respond.
According to Simkin, squads started recruiting for the strategic round in April and finished it in July. Following a $5 million investment in 2018 and a $1.5 million round in 2021, the round increases the company’s total funding to date to $12.5 million.
Describe the Squads protocol.
Squads is a multisig system that supports crypto companies in managing and securing their on-chain digital assets. The custodial companies Fireblocks and Copper can be considered competitors of Squads, but Simkin claimed that Squads’ major competitive advantage is its smart contract wallet system, which, unlike multi-party computation, operates entirely on-chain and is completely visible and immutable. Simkin said that some businesses attempt to cover all blockchains concurrently, which might result in compatibility and user experience concerns, and that Squads’ exclusive emphasis on Solana helps.
Additionally, Squads Labs provides a web app that combines its SquadsX and Squads Pro solutions. A web application called Squads, developed on the Squads protocol, aids cryptocurrency enterprises in managing their developer and treasury teams via multisig assets. On the other side, SquadsX is a wallet that works in conjunction with the app and is a browser plugin. More capabilities are available with Squads Pro, a paid subscription that costs $399 per month.
Squads iOS app
Squads said that since its 2021 launch, it has aided more than 100 clients, including Helium, Jito, Pyth, and Tensor, secure more than $500 million in assets. Now that it has additional money, Squads intends to expand even further by improving its current offering and releasing its iOS product aimed at retailers later this year, according to Simkin.
“The entire Solana ecosystem learned key lessons about the risks of centralization in FTX’s collapse, and a silver lining of that collapse was it pushed many teams deeper into the decentralization frontier,” stated Chris Burniske, partner at Placeholder VC, in a statement. “There’s little reason to accept centralized counterparty custody risk when you have a tool like Squads at your disposal.”
Squads Labs now employs 11 individuals, and In the immediate future, Simkin intends to keep the team lean.
