Blockaid, a blockchain security startup and partner of the MetaMask cryptocurrency wallet, has raised $33 million to scale its anti-malicious transaction technology.
Industry-leading venture capital firms, such as Coinbase investor Ribbit Capital and early-stage VC firm Variant, spearheaded Blockaid’s Series A funding round. Among the other investors were Sequoia Capital, Cyberstarts, and Greylock Partners.
In addition to the news, Blockaid announced on October 23 that its security platform is emerging from covert with its first customers, including MetaMask, the OpenSea marketplace, the Rainbow wallet, and the Zerion wallet.
The startup has formed a strategic alliance to provide security solutions for Web3 applications and safeguard users against fraudulent transactions.
MetaMask previously disclosed that, in April 2023, it would collaborate with Blockaid and OpenSea to enable an experimental feature that would warn users when interacting with “known scams.”
“Users who opt-in will benefit from OpenSea’s blocklist of known scams and Blockaid’s analysis of malicious behaviors such as signature farming and wallet draining,” the company stated at the time.
The most recent funding is intended to assist Blockaid in expanding its blockchain security offering to increase the industry’s resistance to breaches and scams.
Blockaid was founded in 2022 by alums of Unit 8200, the largest unit in the Israel Defense Forces, and is compatible with any blockchain network. Blockaid’s security solution can also identify malicious decentralized applications and completely simulate off-chain signatures (EIP-712s).
“Blockaid protects users from fraud, phishing, and hacks,” said Ido Ben-Natan, co-founder and CEO of Blockaid, adding that the company’s security infrastructure scanned 450 million transactions over the past three months.
Blockaid “thwarted 1.2 million malicious transactions” and protected $500 million in user funds that would have otherwise been compromised.
“By proactively preventing malicious actions through our unique architecture, Blockaid improves with each transaction, allowing developers to create fantastic products without worrying about security,” the executive explained.
Dror Avieli, managing director of Consensys, also mentioned that Blockaid is leading a Consensys-wide initiative to reduce fund loss incidents in MetaMask. “Blockaid has pushed our team to unimaginable heights and continues to enable us to make Web3 users more secure than ever before,” Avieli said.
