Kenne Michael 
Blockaid, a blockchain security startup and partner of the MetaMask cryptocurrency wallet, has raised $33 million to scale its anti-malicious transaction technology.
Industry-leading venture capital firms, such as Coinbase investor Ribbit Capital and early-stage VC firm Variant, spearheaded Blockaid’s Series A funding round.
Among the other investors were Sequoia Capital, Cyberstarts, and Greylock Partners.
In addition to the news, Blockaid announced on October 23 that its security platform is emerging from covert with its first customers, including MetaMask, the OpenSea marketplace, the Rainbow wallet, and the Zerion wallet.
The startup has formed a strategic alliance to provide security solutions for Web3 applications and safeguard users against fraudulent transactions.
MetaMask previously disclosed that, in April 2023, it would collaborate with Blockaid and OpenSea to enable an experimental feature that would warn users when interacting with “known scams.”
“Users that opt in to the feature will benefit from OpenSea’s blocklist of known scams, as well as Blockaid’s analysis of malicious behaviors like signature farming and wallet draining,” the firm said.
As part of our ongoing commitment to keep our community safe and secure, we’re working with our friends @opensea and @blockaid_ on an experimental feature in @MetaMask that will warn users when interacting with known scams. pic.twitter.com/MPn9yE7utD
— MetaMask 🦊🫰 (@MetaMask) April 5, 2023
The most recent funding is intended to assist Blockaid in expanding its blockchain security offering to increase the industry’s resistance to breaches and scams.
Blockaid was founded in 2022 by alums of Unit 8200, the largest unit in the Israel Defense Forces, and is compatible with any blockchain network.
Blockaid’s security solution can also detect malicious decentralized applications and completely simulate off-chain signatures (EIP-712s).
“Blockaid protects users from fraud, phishing, and hacks,” Blockaid co-founder and CEO Ido Ben-Natan said, adding that its security platform scanned 450 million transactions in the past 3 months. He noted that Blockaid “thwarted 1.2 million malicious transactions” and safeguarded $500 million in user funds that would have been otherwise compromised.
“By proactively preventing malicious actions through our unique architecture, Blockaid improves with every transaction, enabling developers to build great products without having to worry about security,” the executive said.
Dror Avieli, managing director of Consensys, also mentioned that Blockaid is leading a Consensys-wide initiative to reduce fund loss incidents in MetaMask.
“Blockaid has pushed our team to heights we didn’t know possible and continues to enable us to make users more secure than they have ever been in Web3,” Avieli added.
