To help detect, investigate, prevent illegal crypto activities, Merkle Science secured US $5.75 M in Series A funding round
Merkle Science, a Singapore-based business that provides a predictive blockchain monitoring and investigation platform, has raised $5.75 million in a Series A investment headed by Darrow Holdings.
Kraken Ventures, Bain-backed Uncorrelated Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, Token Bay Capital, Kenetic, and Lunex Ventures are among the other investors.
Merkle Science will utilise the funds to create new products for enterprise customers such as law enforcement and financial organisations. It will also continue to improve its behaviour-based Rule Engine, increasing token coverage to over 500,000 tokens and customising solutions for DeFi and NFT platforms.
Merkle Science just launched in the United States, prompting the financing announcement.
Merkle Science co-founder and CEO Mriganka Pattnaik, said, “Our vision is to build the infrastructure necessary to ensure the safe and healthy growth of the crypto industry, starting with understanding the risks associated with cryptocurrency transactions.”
“Globally, we have seen strong demand, especially from financial institutions and law enforcement agencies, as crypto-related illicit activity and regulations have taken centre stage. Merkle Science’s intelligence platform is highly customisable and built to evolve with crypto criminal activity, simplifying crypto compliance for our users and ultimately allowing them to focus on their core competencies,” he explained.
Merkle Science, which was founded in 2018, assists crypto businesses, financial institutions, and government organisations in detecting, investigating, and preventing illicit cryptocurrency activity.
Merkle’s technology offers a behaviour-based approach to transaction risk management, resulting in more proactive and effective crime monitoring and investigations than other blockchain monitoring and investigative solutions on the market. This strategy allows the company’s intelligence platform to develop in response to crypto-related criminal behaviour, simplifying crypto compliance and allowing businesses to focus on their core strengths.
Its Blockchain Monitoring solution goes beyond blacklists, allowing compliance teams to spot suspicious behaviour in their incoming and outgoing bitcoin transactions and satisfy their local KYC/AML standards.
The tool also assists authorities in better understanding the dangers associated with various sorts of crypto companies, staying abreast of new technology, and keeping up with the industry’s increasingly sophisticated illegal operations.
Dean Carlson, head of digital asset investments at Susquehanna and newly-appointed board member at Merkle Science, noted: “As the crypto industry continues to evolve, regulatory challenges are the biggest hurdles to mainstream adoption by financial institutions. The Merkle team has the right mix of regulatory and technology domain expertise to become the gold standard for cryptocurrency compliance and forensics.”
Carlson’s role as a board member will be to advise the management team at a key juncture in the company’s development as crypto becomes more popular, amidst rapidly changing crypto legislation.
Merkle Science claims to have increased its revenue by over 900 percent thanks to clients in APAC, Europe, and North America.
Merkle Science received an initial investment from Lunex and SGInnovate in May 2019.
Institutional interest in cryptocurrencies and compliance has soared in the United States in recent months, prompting both co-founders to relocate their offices to New York as part of Merkle Science’s development ambitions.
