PayPal, Salesforce contribute to TRM Labs’ $14M investment round

Blockchain intelligence platform TRM Labs has secured $14 million in Series A funding from venture funds across the crypto and technology sectors, sending a strong signal that major investors are backing digital-asset projects with ever-growing conviction. 

The venture capital arms of PayPal and Salesforce contributed to the raise, which was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, a VC with 130 IPOs under its belt. The full list of investors includes Initialized Capital, Jump Capital, Operator Partners, Blockchain Capital and executives from Google-parent Alphabet Inc.

Ethan Kuzweil, a partner at Bessemer and new TRM board member, explained his firm’s rationale for leading the investment round:

“The team at TRM Labs is building an extraordinary company that is going to be critically important in helping financial institutions safely transition to a new financial system for the digital age [...] TRM will also continue to be a strong partner to law enforcement and regulators around the globe as they work to ensure that illicit actors don’t take advantage of this new financial system.”

TRM helps blockchain companies, financial institutions and even law enforcement agencies investigate, detect and prevent crypto-related financial crime. The importance of fraud detection within the nascent crypto industry was apparent back in 2019 when PayPal first contributed to TRM Labs with a $4.2 million investment round.

While crypto remains a popular attack vector for cyber criminals, evidence suggests criminality within the sector is on the decline, especially as it pertains to money laundering. Nevertheless, boosting fraud protection is considered paramount in bringing crypto assets mainstream.

Related: US officials recover $2.3M in crypto from Colonial Pipeline ransom

TRM’s mission is to “build a safer financial system for billions of people,” and this includes cryptocurrency, according to CEO and co-founder Esteban Castano.

TRM’s services are likely to grow in importance as the crypto industry expands and attracts new users. Total value locked in DeFi protocols eclipsed $150 billion in April, having grown by a factor of ten in less than a year. The total value of the cryptocurrency market eclipsed $2.6 trillion earlier this year before undergoing a broad correction.