Merkle Science raises $5.75m in Series A from Darrow Holdings and others

By Edlyn Cardoza

Merkle Science, the leading predictive blockchain monitoring and investigative platform, recently announced the close of its $5.75 million USD Series A funding round led by Darrow Holdings. Other investors in the round include Kraken Ventures, Bain-backed Uncorrelated Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, Token Bay Capital, Kenetic, and Lunex Ventures. In addition, Merkle Science adds venture investment veteran and Head of Digital Asset Investments at Susquehanna, Dean Carlson, to its board. The funding announcement comes shortly after Merkle Science’s recent launch into the US market and the hire of Mary Beth Buchanan as President, Americas, and Global Chief Legal Officer.

“We’re thrilled to have the support of prominent investors who have great track records of investing in some of the most successful FinTech and blockchain startups in the world,” said Merkle Science Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Mriganka Pattnaik. “It gives us great confidence that they are in line with our vision to build the infrastructure necessary to ensure the safe and healthy growth of the crypto industry — starting with understanding the risks associated with cryptocurrency transactions. Globally, we have seen strong demand — especially from financial institutions and law enforcement agencies — as crypto-related illicit activity and regulations have taken centre stage. Merkle Science’s intelligence platform is highly customizable and built to evolve with crypto criminal activity, simplifying crypto compliance for our users and ultimately allowing them to focus on their core competencies.” 

Unlike other blockchain monitoring and investigative tools on the market, Merkle Science’s platform takes a behaviour-based approach to transaction risk management, resulting in more proactive and effective crime monitoring and investigations. The behaviour-based approach enables Merkle Science’s intelligence platform to evolve with crypto-related criminal activity, simplifying crypto compliance and ultimately allowing businesses to focus on their core competencies.

Dean Carlson, Head of Digital Asset Investments at Susquehanna and newly-appointed Board Member at Merkle Science, notes: “As the crypto industry continues to evolve, regulatory challenges are the biggest hurdles to mainstream adoption by financial institutions. The Merkle team has the right mix of regulatory and technology domain expertise to become the gold standard for cryptocurrency compliance and forensics. It is my pleasure to join Merkle Science’s board and I look forward to working more intimately with the team as they build out crypto compliance tools for the financial services and government industries.” As a board member, Dean will guide the executive team at a critical growth stage — as crypto goes mainstream amid fast-evolving crypto regulations.

Brandon Gath, the Managing Partner at Kraken Ventures, adds: “We are excited by the advanced predictive analytics that Merkel Science brings to monitoring and vetting blockchain transactions. We believe they offer a superior set of products in a market that will see tremendous growth in demand from businesses, financial institutions, and government bodies looking to strengthen their risk management and compliance capabilities. That’s why we are thrilled to be able to support them in their journey to becoming the leading crypto risk and intelligence platform.”

Merkle Science has grown from strength to strength, achieving a dominating presence in the APAC region since its seed round in May 2019. With clients across APAC, Europe, and North America, Merkle Science has grown its revenue by over 900%, and its headcount has tripled in size over the past two years. In the past six months, institutional interest for cryptocurrencies and compliance in the US has surged, which has prompted both the co-founders to move their base to New York as part of Merkle Science’s expansion plans.

To address market demand and continue to bolster the company’s momentum, Merkle Science will prioritize accelerating product development to serve enterprise segments such as law enforcement agencies and financial institutions, continue evolving Behavior-based Rule Engine to meet the rise of privacy protocols, rapidly expand Merkle Science’s token coverage to over 500,000 tokens and customize solutions for decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFT platforms. 

Recently, IBS Intelligence reported that Merkle Science announced accelerated global expansion with a major focus on the United States to meet the increasing market demand for its products and services. To support the company’s ambitious goals, Merkle Science appointed former US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan as President, Americas, and Global Chief Legal Officer.