​DeFi Liquidity Protocol Squid Raises $3.5M Round Led by North | CoinQuest

​DeFi Liquidity Protocol Squid Raises $3.5M Round Led by North Island Ventures

Squid, an Axelar-based protocol that connects users and developers with cross-chain liquidity, raised a $3.5 million seed round led by North Island Ventures. The new capital will help Squid add more supported chains and expand the team.

Other participants in the funding round included Distributed Global, Fabric Ventures, Galileo, Chapter One and Noble Capital, among others. Axelar participated as a strategic investor.

Introduced in 2021, the Axelar network is a blockchain of connected blockchains that allows for cross-chain communications. Squid provides cross-chain liquidity that connects decentralized exchanges (DEX) with more users in a more user-friendly way that doesn’t involve the security risks of cross-chain bridges.

Cross-chain liquidity in theory can provide more liquidity for borrowing and lending activity and put DEXs on a more even playing field with centralized exchanges, which took a hit after the recent collapse of multibillion-dollar exchange FTX.

“Failure of centralized trading platforms has highlighted the need for secure decentralized alternatives. Squid powers this future by enabling decentralized, secure, and simple to use cross-chain swaps,” said Axelar co-founder Sergey Gorbunov in the press release.