Halborn secures $90M Series A to keep blockchain safe
By Riley Kaminer
Despite the crypto winter, web3 frens still have a lot to celebrate. They can buy new assets at steep discounts while benefiting from a vibrant ecosystem worth over $1 trillion. But as this sector grows, so do the security risks – as seen in the $600 million hack of Axie Infinity earlier this year.
Blockchain security startup Halborn is taking advantage of the growth of the NFT space and keeping investors safe. The Miami-based company just secured a $90 million Series A led by Summit Partners — the first fundraising for Halborn, which has until now been stalled. A handful of global investors also participated: Digital Currency Group, Castle Island Ventures, Third Prime, BH Digital, SkyVision Capital and Fenwick & West.
Halborn’s services include security consulting services, advanced penetration testing, smart contract audits and DevOps automation. Their clients include some of the most prominent names in the space, such as Coinbase, BlockFi, Solana, Phantom, Polygon and Parrot. Since it was founded in 2019, the team size has grown to over 100 employees worldwide – with a key hub in South Florida.
In an interview with Bloomberg, CEO Rob Behnke commented that the recent drop in crypto prices will not affect the company’s operations, thanks to their hyper-focus on cybersecurity.
“The price of crypto has nothing to do with our business,” Behnke claimed. “What really matters is that the whole industry is growing.”
According to Behnke, demand for Halborn’s services continues to increase as hacks become more prevalent in the industry. Halborn’s Miami-based co-founder and chief information security officer, Steven Walbroehl, told Bloomberg that they even identified a security issue with prominent crypto wallet MetaMask. “We’ve been at it for almost a year before they got it fixed,” Walbroehl said.
Behnke is a serial entrepreneur, having founded NouGit, an open source software acceleration network; Token, a blockchain business strategy and marketing consultancy; and Brooklyn Salsa Company (the name says it all). Walbroehl, who attended FAU as an undergrad and FIU for a master’s, left his role as a New York-based VP at IBM to co-found Halborn.
Halborn also educates non-crypto companies such as Amazon and Nike on how to safely use blockchain protocols, while also advising financial institutions and banks on how to mitigate the risks associated with dealing with crypto. “They really want to make sure they don’t get hacked and lose all their money,” Behnke said.
Summit Partners’ CEO Matthew Hamilton believes demand for the company’s services will only increase as the crypto space matures. This is the investor’s first foray into the crypto space, and they see the timing – in the middle of this crypto winter – as advantageous. “There is a necessary separation of the good ideas from the bad,” Hamilton said.
Startups offering cybersecurity services in the crypto space continue to take large funding rounds. New York-based Chainalysis has now raised over $500 million for its forensic accounting and compliance platform. Forta, a cybersecurity service focused on smart contracts, has raised $23 million. And crypto fraud prevention company Elliptic has raised more than $100 million – just to name a few.
This post may be updated.
READ MORE AT REFRESH MIAMI:
