Braavos raises $10 million for all-in-one crypto wallet solution on StarkNet
Crypto wallet Braavos said today it has raised $10 million in seed funding to build an all-in-one crypto solution on Ethereum scaling blockchain StarkNet.
The seed round was led by crypto-focused investment firm Pantera Capital and was joined by Brevan Howard Digital, Road Capital, Crypto.com, Maxiport and Starkware.
Founded in early 2022, Braavos provides a way for users to keep their own cryptocurrency securely on their own devices, what is called “self-storage”, with an easy-to-understand user interface. The wallet solution is built on top of StarkNet, a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethernet developed by Starkware. It is designed to solve scaling problems for the network, which uses “zero-knowledge” digests to improve transaction speed and reduce fees.
The app itself is designed to be simple and easy and runs on a variety of platforms including iOS, Android devices and browsers. It also has several plugins that can be loaded into Chrome, Firefox, Brave and Microsoft Edge. As a result, users can get the app wherever they are and start holding their own crypto.
“Crypto today is still too technical and complex for many users – requiring them to handle seeds and security keys, suffer from low error tolerance, and educate themselves on non-trivial [decentralized finance] protocols,” said Braavo CEO Motty Lavie. “Our mission is to eliminate these high-friction barriers and give users the smooth experience they deserve while preserving the core crypto values of decentralization and self-storage.”
The Braavos wallet includes the traditional options of traditional self-storage of assets with multi-token options along with the ability to buy and exchange tokens in a built-in exchange as well. Users can buy tokens with a credit card or Apple Pay, transfer them from their favorite exchange or exchange tokens using an exchange protocol built into the wallet.
To keep wallets as safe as possible, the app uses existing mobile devices’ Trusted Execution Environment features and biometric identification tools, Lavie told Decrypt. The same security systems store private keyphrases, which are used as an emergency backup in case of a lost or broken wallet, but even if the device is lost or stolen, private keys and seedphrases are stored in the phone’s secure enclave architecture.
As part of the roadmap for future features, the team intends to build a “forgot password” mechanism and add multi-factor authentication to make the wallet feel more like a traditional app.
The additional funds will be used to expand product research and development, hire more team members and push forward marketing campaigns.
