Quick take:
- Cube3.Ai raised $8.2 million in a round led by Blockchange Ventures.
- Spherex also secured $8.2 million from Aleph, Pillar VC, Fabric Ventures and Mensch Capital Partners.
- On Tuesday, blockchain security firm Forta updated its scam protection tool amid rising cases of fraud.
Web3 security firms are ramping up their detection and protection tools amid rising cases of fraud. This week, this segment of the crypto market has already registered two major fundraisings, announced on Wednesday.
SphereX raises $8.2 million
SphereX a web3 security startup founded by Eyal Meron and Oren Fine raised $8.2 million in a seed round led by Aleph. The Tel-Aviv-based early-stage venture fund was joined by Pillar VC, Fabric Ventures and Mensch Capital Partners.
SphereX has a mission to bring make transactions on the blockchain as secure as using traditional finance methods by blockchain suspicious transactions.
“The market has been pigeonholed for years on monitoring solutions, while SphereX’s flagship product is focused on actually stopping malicious actors,” Parker McKee, a principal at Pillar VC, said in a statement.
The web3 startup’s flagship product SphereX Protect together with the two founders and nine employees allow protocols and blockchain applications to stop suspicious transactions from executing.
“We must bring the cyber resilience of the space to the next level,” Meron, SphereX CEO told Fortune.
Cube3.AI secures $8.2 million
Another crypto security startup that is celebrating a major fundraiser is Cube3.ai. The company offers a real-time web3 transaction security platform that blocks malicious threats. Cube3.ai has raised $8.2 million in a seed round led by Blockchange Ventures, with participation from Dispersion Capital, Symbolic Capital, Hypersphere Ventures, ICLUB and TA Ventures.
Cube3.ai wants to address a major gap left by the two main security layers used in blockchain transactions. According to the company, while Code Security – the first step involved in securing web3 transactions is crucial, a Remediation step, which comes into effect after a hack also plays a crucial role.
However, both leave a gap, which according to Chainalysis resulted in more than $3.8 billion stolen from DeFi protocols in 2022. That is the gap that Cube3.ai is looking to plug and seal the loopholes.
“For every step forward we’ve taken in the web3 and DeFi industries in recent years, we take three steps back in consumer confidence after every exploit,” said CUBE3.AI Founder and CEO Einaras Gravrock. “Today, we introduced the next critical step in web3 security: real-time transaction security.”
“Our platform leverages advanced machine learning algorithms to evaluate every transaction in real-time. In addition to detecting threats and sending alerts, it enables companies deploying smart contracts to block malicious transactions in real-time so they never have to pause their web3 applications,” added Gravrock.
Forta’s scam detector gets an upgrade
On Tuesday, blockchain security firm Forta upgraded its scam detection tool, amid rising fraud cases. This comes days after a report by Rekt showed hackers and scammers stole more than $390 million in crypto last month. Forta’s scam detection tool uses automated bots.
The service went live on Tuesday and is available across seven Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains including Ethereum, Polygon and BNB Chain. The tool has now been upgraded to include malicious URL data, enabling it to flag the latest types of threats and smart contract scanners, a representative told CoinDesk on Tuesday.
Last week, the FBI warned crypto traders that scammers are posing as NFT developers. The US crime watchdog told traders to watch out for fake social media accounts asking them to click links for exclusive offers. Phishing links are among the most common ways of leading unsuspecting internet users to malicious websites.
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