Focused on digital asset risk infrastructure Andalucian Laboratoriesformerly known as RiskHarbor, raised $48 million in a Series A round at a valuation “north of $1 billion,” the company shared exclusively with TechCrunch.
Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round. and other investors include Mubadala Capital as well as existing participants such as Pantera Capital, Framework Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures and Digital Currency Group, among others.
Alongside the new capital increase, Andalusia Labs opened its global headquarters in Abu Dhabi. The $48 million will also be used to grow product development and expand the team, said Raouf Ben-Har, co-founder of Andalusia Labs. To date, the company has raised a total of approximately $51 million.
The startup has three major digital asset technology solutions, a layer 2 blockchain called Karak, a crypto risk management marketplace called Subsea, and a security-focused institutional platform called Watchtower. All aim to provide digital asset support to institutions, developers and consumers through their respective niches.
Both Subsea and Watchtower were built on the Karak blockchain, Ben-Har said. Karak has just launched its public testnet with the mainnet launch expected soon.
“In blockchain and web3 – where security threats dominate – robust risk infrastructure becomes essential,” said Ben-Har. “Risk infrastructure provides the basic backbone.”
Subsea has secured over $1 billion in crypto and built more than 100 integrations with different blockchains and financial applications, the company shared in a release. And as for her core clientele? “Developers, developers, developers,” said co-founder Drew Patel.
The startup originally began as a product that served both consumers and institutions, but an “overwhelming demand” from companies wanting to integrate Andalusia Labs’ products “exceeded the capacity of our team by 100 times,” Patel said. “So while we still provide solutions for institutions and consumers, we are focused on creative developers building the next generation of blockchain applications.”
Andalusia Labs sees risk management as “the foundation of financial stability,” especially in a space like digital assets, where hacks and threats are “ubiquitous,” Patel said. “It acts as a shield against potential financial losses, protects against fraud and ensures compliance with a dynamic risk landscape.”
“Ensuring the security and resilience of digital assets is critical in a dynamic industry,” said Patel. Since the crypto industry has market volatility, evolving regulations and is complex, it requires a “sophisticated and diversified approach” to risk management, he added.
As it stands, the company is focused on growing the infrastructure it has in place and plans to expand its product offerings to protect “new risks and other real-world internal applications” in the future, Patel said. “We’re builders at heart, so we’re always on the moon ideas.”
