Michael Gronager, its co-founder and longtime CEO Chain analysishas agreed to permanently leave the company, two months after taking a temporary personal leave of absence.
Chainalysis, a buzzing 10-year-old blockchain data platform based in New York, will now be led by co-founder Jonathan Levin, Levin told TechCrunch, explaining that on Tuesday, the board gave him Gronager’s job. But Levin, who has long served as the company’s chief strategy officer, will do more than run the company as CEO. he will retain his other roles as well.
“I head R&D and I think the CEO should be the head of product, so I’m not making any changes to our R&D leadership team. he will continue to report directly to me,” he said in an interview Wednesday.
Levin declined to provide more information about Gronager other than to say that Gronager is also no longer on Chainalysis’ board of directors but retains his equity in the company.
A message to Gronager on Wednesday from TechCrunch was not returned.
Asked about Chainalysis’ financial health, Levin said the startup “continues to invest in our growth” and that “we don’t need to raise capital. We raised $175 million in 2022 and [still] they feel strong about the company’s cash position.” He added that his focus will be “on execution, expanding our risk platform and deepening with our government customers around the world to ensure they can meet increased crypto demand.”
Chainalysis, whose early investors include Benchmark, has been valued by investors at $8.6 billion during this 2022 funding round. Crypto investor Katie Haun, who first discovered Chainalysis in her capacity as a fed prosecution, reportedly started buying secondary shares of the company at a valuation of $2.5 billion last April.
Billed as a “cryptodetective,” one of whose clients include the U.S. government and a wide range of companies, Chainalysis in late 2023 laid off just over 15 percent of its 900-person staff, with plans to focus more on government contracts, according to with The Block.
The entire crypto industry has been in rebound mode in recent weeks as the new Trump administration signals a much friendlier attitude towards digital currencies. The most obvious proof point: The price of bitcoin hit a record high of $100,000 on Wednesday.
Above: Levin at a StrictlyVC event hosted by TechCrunch in November 2024.
