Investing in Blockaid: Protecting Users Onchain
We believe all the world’s value will eventually move over crypto rails. But for web3 to reach that level of adoption, it has to be safe. Today, even among cryptonatives, there is a prevailing anxiety about interacting with malicious contracts or malware—and the consequences of something actually going wrong are untenable.
This is the mission-critical problem Blockaid aims to solve. We believe the company is positioned to excel in a massive and resilient market as more and more value moves onchain.
Over the last year, Blockaid has been working in stealth with some of the biggest applications, wallets, and infrastructure providers to protect their users from fraud, phishing, and hacks. Its engine monitors smart contracts, scans frontends and URLs, and simulates transactions to detect malicious activity—not unlike the virus scans or spam filters that are ubiquitous in web2.
Blockaid has already established itself as a major player via partnerships with marquee names in the space, including integrations with Metamask, Opensea, Rainbow and Zerion to name a few. Moreover, these are full-fledged, deeply embedded integrations that can run client-side to protect user privacy in a way that simple API integrations can’t.
Furthermore, Blockaid’s technical approach involves leveraging data from each integration to make the core system more effective. Each integration—and transaction—provides more feedback for Blockaid’s threat analysis models, strengthening its engine.
Finally, Blockaid has assembled the “Seal Team Six” of security. Founders Ido Ben-Natan and Raz Niv served together in the Israel Defense Forces’ Unit 8200, the world’s top breeding ground for cybersecurity founders. Both were cybersecurity R&D team leads within the Office of the Prime Minister. And they’ve pulled from Israel’s top talent to build a 20-strong team of engineers.
The combination of an elite team, outstanding tech, and impressive traction made investing in Blockaid a no-brainer. We’re excited to partner with the team to make crypto safer. If you’re building anything in crypto that interacts with consumers or developers, safety has to be a priority. Talk to Blockaid.
+++
Disclaimer: This post is for general information purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any investment and should not be used in the evaluation of the merits of making any investment decision. It should not be relied upon for accounting, legal or tax advice or investment recommendations. You should consult your own advisers as to legal, business, tax, and other related matters concerning any investment. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by Variant. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, Variant has not independently verified such information. Variant makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. This post reflects the current opinions of the authors and is not made on behalf of Variant or its Clients and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Variant, its General Partners, its affiliates, advisors or individuals associated with Variant. The opinions reflected herein are subject to change without being updated.
DisclaimerAll information contained herein is for general information purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any investment and should not be used in the evaluation of the merits of making any investment decision. It should not be relied upon for accounting, legal or tax advice or investment recommendations. You should consult your own advisers as to legal, business, tax, and other related matters concerning any investment. None of the opinions or positions provided herein are intended to be treated as legal advice or to create an attorney-client relationship. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by Variant. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, Variant has not independently verified such information. Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by Variant, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Variant (excluding investments for which the issuer has not provided permission for Variant to disclose publicly as well as unannounced investments in publicly traded digital assets) is available at https://variant.fund/portfolio. Variant makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. This post reflects the current opinions of the authors and is not made on behalf of Variant or its Clients and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Variant, its General Partners, its affiliates, advisors or individuals associated with Variant. The opinions reflected herein are subject to change without being updated. All liability with respect to actions taken or not taken based on the contents of the information contained herein are hereby expressly disclaimed. The content of this post is provided "as is;" no representations are made that the content is error-free.