- Ironblocks announced it raised $7 million. These are the details.
Ironblocks, a blockchain-native cybersecurity platform, announced that it has raised $7 million dollars in seed funding.
This funding round was co-led by Collider Ventures and Disruptive AI with additional participants including ParaFi; Quantstamp; Samsung Next; Balaji Srinivasan, ex-CTO of Coinbase and former general partner at Andreessen Horowitz; Calvin Liu, chief strategy officer at Eigen Layer; Simplex co-founder and ex-CEO Nimrod Lehavi; Fos Finance; venture investor Lluis Pedragosa; and others.
Ironblocks is aiming to stem the tide with a novel smart contract-based security solution that operates on-chain to automate threat detection and enable DeFi protocols, Web3 platforms, market makers, and cross-chain bridges to proactively take immediate action to stop hackers in real time to secure funds before they are funneled into hackers’ wallets.
Last year, there was a record amount of money stolen from DeFi protocols by hackers at over $3.9 billion, according to Immunefi. This was more than a 56% increase over the previous year. Plus over 80% of all exploit hacks resulted in the successful theft of funds. Ironblocks is set to prevent this kind of malicious activity.
Plus last year there were 155 individual exploits, a more than 50% increase over 2021 and this proved that hackers have become more brazen as hundreds of dApps continue to come online and they are further emboldened by a lack of reliable cybersecurity solutions and consistent enforcement by authorities. Robust security measures are needed to thwart their efforts and further build trust between founders and users.
The funds will be used for accelerating development activity and further expanding the team across engineering, sales, marketing, and more, and also to support a number of product launches and partnerships that will soon be announced.
Ironblocks is based in Tel Aviv and the company was co-founded in 2022 by Or Dadosh and CTO Assaf Eli, veteran software engineers and blockchain natives with vast experience in cyber security and in DeFi, having been part of the team responsible for creating Bancor, and securing more than $300 million in total value locked (TVL).
Or Dadosh was also previously head of blockchain innovation and solidity developer at Orbs, blockchain engineer at eToro, and blockchain leader at Bancor.
Assaf Eli previously also was a blockchain consultant for projects on the Ethereum Network ecosystem, which was part of the former core team that built Bancor and served as a technical team lead in Israeli Military Intelligence.
Ironblocks is an end-to-end security provider for Web3 platforms, DeFi protocols, bridges, market makers, and other digital asset projects. And Ironblocks automates proactive threat detection and will soon enable teams to instantly take preventative measures in milliseconds.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are thrilled to be on this journey with such a great group of partners as we set out to set a new standard for on-chain threat mitigation. We believe that smart contract security is a given right for all crypto traders and protocols, and we aim to ensure the safety of data and crypto assets in the best way to bring about the broad adoption in DeFi and Web3.”
— Ironblocks CEO Or Dadosh
“Smart contracts, like other blockchain financial fundamentals, must have the right protection. It is critical for Institutional players and all ecosystem maturity. Ironblocks is harnessing artificial intelligence and years of deep native blockchain experience to disrupt the way on-chain products are done. We are excited to back the team in executing its vision.”
— Yorai Fainmesser, general partner at Disruptive AI
“Ironblocks is building a best-in-class solution to help bring an end to hacks, exploits, and thefts in DeFi and Web3. We are proud to be part of this effort and believe that this is going to be a game changer for many protocols that will enable them to further establish trust and credibility with their communities.”
— Adam Benayoun, managing partner at Collider
