Solana DeFi Firms Orca and Loopscale Merge Under New Formation Brand

Solana decentralized exchange Orca and lending protocol Loopscale are merging into a single company called Formation, the two teams announced Wednesday.

The new firm is headquartered in New York and led by Loopscale co-founder Luke Truitt as CEO, with fellow co-founder Mary Gooneratne as chief operating officer and Orca’s Christopher Montagano as chief strategy and legal officer. Neither announcement discloses financial terms.

Formation pairs Orca’s trading infrastructure with Loopscale’s credit order book and vaults, so an issuer can launch an asset with trading and credit live from day one, according to Loopscale’s FAQ. Orca has processed more than $550 billion in trading volume since 2021, while Loopscale reports more than $150 million in deposits and over $2 billion in loans facilitated, according to the companies’ own numbers.

The idea is to provide a full stack of decentralized financial services, integrating liquidity solutions, credit, and vaults into one platform.

Orca launched in February 2021 and raised an $18 million Series A that September. Loopscale, formerly known as Bridgesplit, raised $4.25 million in 2021 from CoinFund, Jump, Coinbase Ventures, Solana Ventures, and Room40.

Formation is targeting AI, energy, robotics, and defense companies whose financing needs it says traditional markets serve poorly.

Truitt cast the merger as a bet that capital markets have to keep pace with the industries they fund. “Every major technological revolution has been paired with a financial one,” he said in the press release.

Formation’s business is exploring the possibilities opened by the SEC’s Sept. 17 innovation exemption, a five-year order that lets tokenized securities venues trade tokenized U.S.-listed stocks through permissioned automated market maker pools without registering as exchanges. Formation says it plans to operate such a venue and pursue additional licenses, building on Orca’s nearly two years of engagement with securities and commodities regulators.

Formation’s press release adds that its planned products are subject to legal and regulatory requirements and may not be available to U.S. persons. Loopscale’s lending, borrowing, vaults and order book keep running as before, and existing positions are unchanged.

ORCA will serve as the token for all of Formation, so Loopscale will not launch its own, per the same FAQ. Loopscale points keep accruing and will convert later this year.

Over the next 12 months, Formation plans to introduce tools for issuers and new capital allocation strategies alongside its existing trading, lending and vault products.