With over 1,000 clients and $70B worth of digital assets secured, CertiK’s exponential growth continues, raising its total funding to more than $48 million since 2018.
Columbia Professor Ronghui Gu (L) and Yale Professor Zhong Shao (R), Co-Founders of CertiK (Photo: Business Wire)
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CertiK, the A global leader in blockchain security, today announced a $37 million Series B funding round co-led by Coatue Management and Shunwei Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures. This is the largest single round of fundraising in the blockchain security space, and joins CertiK’s list of notable backers, which include IDG Capital, Binance, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Yale University, and others.
“Decentralized finance has grown tremendously in the last 18 months, giving millions of people access to financial tools and innovative savings products. With such rapid innovation, security is of paramount importance.”
Founded in 2018 by professors from Yale University and Columbia University, CertiK is a pioneer in blockchain security, using best-in-class AI technology to audit and monitor blockchain protocols and smart contracts. Since closing $11 million in financing just under a year ago, CertiK has worked with more than 600 new clients, resulting in profitable first half 2021 revenue that has more than quadrupled full-year 2020 revenue. CertiK has quickly grown to become the trusted market leader, with more than $70 billion worth of digital assets, including leading projects such as Aave, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Terra, Yearn, and Chiliz.
“Decentralized finance has grown tremendously in the last 18 months, giving millions of people access to financial tools and innovative savings products. With such rapid innovation, security is of the utmost importance,” said Kai Jiang, partner at Coatue Management, LLC. “We are excited to participate in this funding round and look forward to seeing CertiK strengthen its position as a leader in blockchain security. ”
In addition to code auditing, CertiK offers an advanced platform, Skynet, that leverages on-chain and off-chain data, including social sentiment, privileged governance controls, market volatility, suspicious transactions, and more, to provide real-time information on the security of DeFi applications. To date, Skynet has monitored more than 2 million smart contract addresses and more than 2 billion on-chain transactions. Skynet aggregates these signals into individual security scores, publicly ranking projects on the Security Leaderboard to encourage accountability. This free-to-use platform allows crypto users to perform in-depth analysis of their favorite projects, alleviating the centralized role of security auditors.
“The power of blockchain comes down to the power of people,” said Professor Ronghui Gu, co-founder of CertiK. “We are proud to promote transparency in the space by providing the tools and resources, including our official audit reports, so the community can understand vital security information.”
New York-based CertiK is one of the fastest growing startups in the blockchain security space. The funds will be used to accelerate the development of innovative products, deepen end-to-end security capabilities and expand the team with additional world-class talent. Since the first quarter of 2020, the size of the CertiK team has more than doubled, and this growth rate will continue in 2021, creating a highly effective and remote work-friendly culture with talent located around the world.
ABOUT
CERTIK CertiK’s mission is to secure the cyber world. Starting with blockchain, CertiK applies cutting-edge innovations from academia to the enterprise, enabling mission-critical applications to be built securely and correctly. Based in New York City, CertiK was founded by computer science professors from Yale University and Columbia University. CertiK is backed by industry leaders including Coatue Management, Shunwei Capital, Binance, Coinbase Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, IDG Capital, Legend Star, Wing, DHVC, and more.
