Squads Labs announced on April 29, 2026 that it has secured $18 million in a new funding round led by Solana Ventures, according to The Block. The capital will go toward scaling Altitude, the company's stablecoin-native business account product that targets companies in markets where reliable dollar access through conventional banks is limited or expensive. Squads' total known fundraising across publicly disclosed rounds exceeds $33 million, though the true cumulative total is likely higher, as that figure does not capture the full size of Haun Ventures' undisclosed May 2025 investment or an early seed round.

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What Altitude Does

Altitude lets businesses open a dollar-denominated account using only an email address, with no requirement for a US legal entity or an existing relationship with a correspondent bank. Once funded, companies can send and receive money across ACH, SEPA, Wire, and SWIFT rails alongside direct stablecoin transfers. The platform supports multi-currency accounts in USD, EUR, MXN, BRL, and GBP, and according to Altitude, the platform currently operates in more than 150 countries, though availability may vary by jurisdiction based on KYB and sanctions compliance requirements.

Idle balances earn 3.25% annually through a US Treasury-backed yield product, with additional integrations into decentralized finance protocols offering higher rates.

Altitude is legally classified as a fintech product rather than a bank or digital asset custodian, a distinction that affects how it handles regulatory requirements across jurisdictions. The platform is separate from Squads' core multisig protocol, which allows groups of people to share control over a crypto wallet and requires multiple approvals before funds move.

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Squads' Infrastructure Position on Solana

Squads Protocol has become the dominant institutional-grade smart account infrastructure on Solana since launching in 2021. The protocol currently secures between $10 billion and $15 billion in assets. The Squads Protocol multisig infrastructure has separately processed more than $5 billion in stablecoin transfers, a figure that reflects the underlying protocol's activity rather than Altitude's operations. Between 450 and 500 businesses use Squads infrastructure to manage their on-chain treasuries.

Garrett Harper, head of business development at Squads, described the core challenge the company is trying to solve: "Receiving stables can sound simple, but once you start trying to create an operating account around stablecoins, it's pretty complex."

Altitude represents Squads' push beyond wallet infrastructure into a full operating account. The company runs a three-product stack: Squads Multisig for institutional treasury management, Fuse as a consumer-facing crypto banking experience with stablecoin yield (launched alongside the June 2024 Series A), and Altitude for business clients.

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Funding History and Investor Context

This is the third significant funding event for Squads in roughly two years. Electric Capital led a $10 million Series A in June 2024, joined by RockawayX, Coinbase Ventures, L1 Digital, and Placeholder. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko and Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz participated as angel investors in that round. Haun Ventures made a separate strategic investment of an undisclosed size in May 2025, timed to coincide with Altitude's initial public announcement.

The new $18 million from Solana Ventures is the largest publicly disclosed funding round in the company's history and its first confirmed investment by that fund in 2026. Solana Ventures has previously backed stablecoin infrastructure plays, including a $3.75 million investment in yield-bearing stablecoin issuance platform Reflect Money in September 2025.

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Regional Relevance: Africa and South Asia

The practical case for Altitude is strongest in markets where businesses routinely face currency access problems or high cross-border payment costs. Africa is the clearest example. Stablecoins now account for 43% of crypto transaction volume across Sub-Saharan Africa, and roughly 79% of crypto-active users in the region hold stablecoins, the highest share globally. Sub-Saharan Africa recorded approximately $205 billion in on-chain value during the July 2024 to June 2025 period, a 52% year-over-year increase, with Nigeria alone accounting for $22 billion in stablecoin transaction volume in the prior year. Traditional remittance corridors to the continent cost an average of 8.78% per transaction, compared to stablecoin transfers that run between 0.5% and 1%.

Chris Maurice, CEO of pan-African exchange Yellow Card, has described the concrete limits businesses face: a food importer sourcing from Switzerland or the UK could only access 30% of needed dollars through formal banking channels. Squads positions Altitude as addressing exactly this gap, given that the platform requires no US legal entity and supports stablecoin inflows alongside traditional payment rails.

Several major African markets have also developed formal regulatory frameworks for crypto and virtual asset service providers. South Africa has issued more than 300 CASP licences, Kenya passed a VASP framework in October 2025, Ghana enacted a VASP Act in December 2025, and Nigeria passed the Investment and Securities Act 2025. These frameworks shape the compliance environment Altitude would need to navigate across the continent.

South Asia is a comparable opportunity. The region recorded 80% year-over-year growth in crypto adoption during the first seven months of 2025, driven in part by remittance demand and a large freelance technology sector that faces persistent friction when receiving dollar payments.

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What Comes Next

Squads has not disclosed a specific product roadmap tied to the new capital, but the company has signaled that Altitude's underlying API layer, called Grid, is intended as infrastructure other fintech developers can build on. Industry observers have compared Altitude's potential role to the base-currency function that Circle's USDC plays on other networks, framing it as a possible foundational dollar-account layer for Solana-based business applications. That comparison is an analytical assessment rather than a position stated by Solana Ventures or Squads.

The global stablecoin market now exceeds $300 billion in total capitalization. Whether that growth translates into durable operating infrastructure for businesses outside the US will depend in part on whether products like Altitude can navigate the compliance requirements that vary sharply by country.