Digital asset risk infrastructure-focused Andalusia Labs, formerly known as RiskHarbor, has raised $48 million in a Series A round at a valuation “north of $1 billion,” the company exclusively shared with TechCrunch.
Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round; other investors include Mubadala Capital as well as existing participants like Pantera Capital, Framework Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures and Digital Currency Group, among others.
Alongside the fresh capital raise, Andalusia Labs opened its global headquarters in Abu Dhabi. The $48 million will also be used to grow its product development and expand the team, said Raouf Ben-Har, co-founder of Andalusia Labs. To date, the company has raised a total of about $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-centric 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 just launched its public testnet with mainnet launch anticipated soon.
“In blockchain and web3 — where security threats are prevalent — robust risk infrastructure becomes indispensable,” Ben-Har said. “Risk infrastructure provides the essential 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 its main clientele? “Developers, developers, developers,” said co-founder Drew Patel.
The startup initially began as a product that served both consumers and institutions, but an “overwhelming demand” from companies wanting to integrate Andalusia Labs’ products “outpaced our team’s capacity by 100x,” Patel said. “So although we still provide solutions for institutions and consumers, we are focused on creative developers who are building the next generation of blockchain applications.”
Andalusia Labs views risk management as the “bedrock of financial stability,” especially in a space like digital assets, where hacks and threats are “omnipresent,” Patel said. “It acts as a shield against potential financial losses, safeguards against fraud and ensures compliance with a dynamic risk landscape.”
“Ensuring the security and resilience of digital assets is critical in a dynamic industry,” Patel said. Given that the crypto industry has market volatility, evolving regulations and is complex, it requires a “sophisticated and nuanced approach” for risk management, he added.
As it stands, the company is focused on building out the infrastructure it has and plans to expand its product offerings to protect “new risks and other esoteric real-world applications” in the future, Patel said. “We are builders at heart, so we are always tinkering with moonshot ideas.”