By George Ward
The famous private equity company Thomas Bravo is leading a $70 million Series B funding round for TRM Labs in collaboration with Goldman Sachs and the venture arms of PayPal, Citi Group, and American Express.
Funding Crypto Risks Management and Compliance Services
According to Thomas Bravo and as reported by multiple media outlets, it has previously invested $100 billion in digital assets, with significant amounts going to FalconX, Anchorage, and Figment.
The deal, which was sealed in October alongside Thomas Bravo, involves some institutional giants like Goldman Sachs, PayPal, Amex, and Citi Group. However, TRM did not reveal its new valuation. Meanwhile, TRM Labs noted that it onboarded Thomas Bravo due to its history of moving firms to IPO.
Furthermore, TRM’s primary focus is on software that traces every crypto trade, conducts risk assessments for other digital asset businesses, and monitors transactions to comply with anti-money laundering regulations.
There is a rising demand for solutions to protect crypto token holders, prevent illegal activities, and bolster blockchain-based innovations, says Esteban Castaño, the CEO of TRM.
The CEO added:
“The industry is rapidly growing, with many threats to safe and secure transactions coming up. TRM is developing solutions for products and equipping enterprises and the government on how best to fight fraud and other criminal activities.”
With the latest funding round, TRM seeks to create innovative tools to help law enforcement combat the rising financial crimes that have continued to threaten the stability of the virtual asset industry.
So far, in 2022, more than $3 billion has been lost on crypto-related attacks, and TRM noted that it is looking to develop defense mechanisms for the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.
Per the Block, some of the TRM core team are former members of Interpol, the IRS, the FBI, and other law enforcement bodies.
Increasing Fund Raising to Fight Fraud
Last year’s bear market has left investors with a black eye, with many yet to recover from the loss they took by investing in risky assets. On the other hand, fraud and compliance enterprises are looking to raise more funds from venture capital and equity firms to build more security software to defend the ecosystem from hackers.
Two months ago, the fraud detection company Sardine managed to raise $51.5 million as part of its Series B funding from investors like Visa, a16z, and ConsenSys.
However, deals like that of Tim and Sardine are rare, especially during the current market condition. The Block’s Research shows that the percentage of mid-stage deals that failed to complete is 63% from 30 deals in the year’s second quarter compared to just 11 in Q1.
Raising funds has always been a rough ride considering the high volatility rate in the industry, but the areas of software development to manage risks may seem too unattractive.
To that end, the latest funding rounds would help to bolster the industry’s drive to fight the frequent cases of malicious hacking.