CertiK, a blockchain security firm, has raised $60 million in funding from SoftBank Vision Fund II and Tiger Global, cementing its unicorn status after raising a total of $290 million in the previous nine months.
The increase comes at a time when the blockchain community is driving growth in Web3 application development and developing new applications for virtual ecosystems, particularly in gaming, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and decentralized finance (DeFi).
“When development moves at breakneck speed, mistakes happen,” CertiK’s VP of marketing Monier Jalal explained in a written statement to Cointelegraph. He went on:
“With current Web3 development, security most often is an afterthought — and this is the danger. Early-stage maturity around new infrastructure, e.g., cross-chain bridges or DeFi lending schemes, e.g. flash loans, are targets for hackers.”
According to Jalal, the “financial nature” of digital assets and DeFi protocols means their rewards are far greater than anything seen in the Web2 era.
“The magnitude of the impact, combined with rising trends in Web3 development and resulting hacks, is what’s driving the demand for Web3 security,” he explained.
Blockchain security services have received a lot of attention from venture capitalists.
CertiK raised $88 million in Series B3 funding earlier this month, doubling its valuation to $2 billion, led by Insight Partners, Tiger Global, and Advent International. In December 2021, the company raised $80 million in a funding round led by Sequoia.
In the crypto industry, security flaws are frequently in the news. In January, ImmuneFi, a bug bounty service, revealed that DeFi hacks drained over $10.2 billion in funds in 2021 alone. Earlier this month, Axie Infinity’s Ronin bridge was hacked for over $600 million after attackers gained access to validator node private keys.
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