Quick take:
- Hansong Zhang, a former Chief Scientist at Niantic, is backing AnChain.AI as an investor.
- Rex Ng, president and co-founder of mobile game publisher 6waves, joins the company as an advisor.
- The cybersecurity firm will be launching its upcoming NFT platform this month.
Mobile game industry veterans Hansong Zhang and Rex Ng have joined AI-powered cybersecurity firm, AnChain.AI as investor and advisor respectively.
Zhang was the former chief scientist of Pokemon Go creator, Niantic, where he led technology initiatives in augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI). He was also the founding vice president of technology at Roblox, the world’s largest platform for user-created games and spaces.
Prior to that, he served in technical leadership roles at Silicon Graphics (SGI) and Nvidia. At his first startup, he architected a graphics engine that, through acquisition, powered Google Earth.
Ng is the president and co-founder of Hong Kong-based mobile game publisher, 6waves. He began his Silicon Valley career by building HP’s BI system and Data Warehouse, followed by the next decade in Yahoo Inc., leading the Yahoo Strategic Data Solution team.
Niantic recently bought AR technology company 8th Wall to accelerate its metaverse plans, while 6waves was recently acquired by Sweden-based global gaming studio, Stillfront Group, for an initial consideration of $201 million.
Founded in 2018 by cybersecurity and enterprise software veterans from FireEye and Mandiant, Victor Fang and Ben Wu, AnChain.AI offers blockchain fraud prevention and investigation, smart contract auditing for DeFi and NFT platforms, and security solutions powered by AI.
Both Zhang and Ng will bring their expertise to AnChain.AI, a blockchain intelligence platform for security, risk, and compliance. In its mission to bring Web3 to the masses, AnChain.AI will be launching its upcoming NFT platform called Tenzing, this month.
Powered by AnChain.AI’s blockchain intelligence solutions, Tenzing aims to offer the industry’s fully compliant, secure, all-in-one solution to help artists, luxury brands and celebrities tap into new revenue streams and community-building capabilities through NFTs.
Ng said that AnChain.AI has already built out the technological infrastructure for its NFT platform, and with the rise of NFT games, AnChain.AI will explore new synergistic opportunities with the next wave of NFT gaming companies.
“Digital goods, virtual economy, and security are pillars of online human co-existence and co-experience of the future,” said Hansong Zhang. “AnChain.AI’s virtual asset and security platforms are critical enabling technologies that usher in technological and societal transformations. It is so exciting to be involved with AnChain and participate in this future in a front-row seat.”
AnChain.AI raised $10 million in a funding round last September and won a multi-year SEC contract to provide a platform for deep analysis and tracing of smart contracts to support the SEC’s ongoing efforts to monitor risk, improve compliance and inform commission policy on digital assets and cryptocurrencies.
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