TRM Labs, a San Francisco compliance startup, closed a $1.7 million seed round led by Blockchain Capital. Tapas Capital, Green D Ventures, The MBA Fund, and a group of strategic angels participated in
TRM Labs, a San Francisco compliance startup, closed a $1.7 million seed round led by Blockchain Capital. Tapas Capital, Green D Ventures, The MBA Fund, and a group of strategic angels participated in the round, announced Thursday.
The funding will support new engineering hires and expand the platform's capabilities. Esteban Castaño, the company's CEO and co-founder, said the broader mission drives the startup's growth. "We believe that cryptocurrency is going to be a democratizing force in the world that lets anyone exchange value and access financial services. But to get there, we need to make it easier for everyone to be compliant."
Founded in 2017, TRM Labs develops enterprise applications, developer tools, and blockchain protocols for startups launching crypto products. Castaño draws a parallel to the early internet. "Just as the Internet led to an explosion of new content, crypto is leading to an explosion of new financial products and markets. We need regulatory and compliance infrastructure that scales with this new world."
The company's flagship product, Token Relationship Management (TRM), harnesses machine learning to help clients manage customer relationships and flag suspicious activity. The platform provides on-chain anti-money laundering compliance, including customer due diligence, transaction monitoring, and customer relationship management tools for digital asset companies. TRM also builds systems that use machine learning to detect money laundering and market manipulation by analyzing millions of data points.
TRM has deployed its analytics solution with TrueUSD, a TrustToken stablecoin. TrustToken uses TRM to segment its user groups and identify which exchanges and channels drive growth.
Spencer Bogart, general partner at Blockchain Capital, cited the founders' background as critical to the investment. "The founders of TRM, Esteban Castaño and Rahul Raina, have deep experience across enterprise software, blockchain, and product design. We think TRM can significantly accelerate crypto's adoption by helping issuers and exchanges increase trust by being compliant on Day 1."
Blockchain Capital, formed in 2013 as Crypto Currency Partners by Bart Stephens, Bradford Stephens, and Brock Pierce, has backed Civic, Circle, Coinbase, Paxos (formerly itBit), ShapeShift, Xapo, the 0x protocol, and other blockchain companies.
