Blockchain Security Firm CertiK Raises $37M in Series B Fundraising

Blockchain cybersecurity startup CertiK has raised $37 million in a Series B funding round that was co-led by Coatue Management and Shunwei Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures.

The blockchain and smart-contract security firm has raised $48 million since 2018, with a list of backers that includes Binance, IDG Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Yale University and others.

The strength of the Series B round reflects the explosive growth in decentralized finance (DeFi), which runs on automated smart-contract code and decentralized exchanges, some of which are subject to bugs and hacks.

Read more: Binance Labs Invests Millions in Blockchain Auditing Platform CertiK

Founded in 2018 by professors from Yale University and Columbia University, CertiK has provided audits and checking to DeFi-related projects like Aave, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Terra, Yearn and Chiliz.

In addition to auditing code, CertiK’s DeFi-focused “Skynet” analytics service scrutinizes on-chain and off-chain data like social sentiment, privileged governance controls, market volatility and suspicious transactions. To date, Skynet has monitored more than 2 million smart-contract addresses and about 2 billion on-chain transactions, the company said.

“We’re proud to advance transparency in the space by providing the tools and resources – including our official audit reports – so the community can make sense of vital security information,” Ronghui Gu, a CertiK co-founder who's a computer science professor at Columbia, said in a statement.