Braavos Raises US$10M in Funding

Braavos

Braavos, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based self-custodial smart contract-based wallet running on top of StarkNet, closed a US$10m round of financing.

The round was led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Road Capital, BH Digital, DCVC, Crypto.com, Matrixport, and Starkware. 

Founded in early 2022 by Motty Lavie (CEO), Abraham Makovetsky and Yoav Gaziel, Braavos is an all-in-one crypto asset management solution for StarkNet—an Ethereum layer-2 ZK Rollup—offering a smart contract-based wallet that provides users with enhanced security and UX features. The company utilizes advanced cryptography to keep assets in self-custody by creating a user experience which is both intuitive and secure for everyday users who wish to seek crypto independence outside of centralized wallets and exchanges without the traditionally associated risks.

Braavos utilizes Ethereum’s inherent security and StarkNet scaling solution, to offer users lower fees and intuitive UX on par with users’ expectations from leading web2 platforms or centralized crypto solutions. Through Braavos, users can connect to dApps; utilize Braavos’ built-in exchange; review transactions in a self explanatory way via Braavos’ Transaction Explainer functionality; as well as traditional wallet features, such as securely transfer/receive ERC20 tokens and convert to USD; browse NFT collectables (images, music, and video); and access developer tools to help developers build and test their apps using the wallet.

Braavos is available as an extension for web browsers as well as for iOS and Android devices.

For optimized security, Braavos has introduced a built-in Hardware Signer, which utilizes users’ existing mobile device Trusted Execution Environment capabilities paired with biometric identification to secure wallets and prevent theft—addressing a key concern for many users reluctant to rely only on a text password to protect their assets. This advanced security scheme is made possible by having Braavos smart contract wallet able to perform arbitrary verification logic on the signed transaction, harnessing the device’s built-in cryptographic algorithm residing within the TEE isolated hardware. For all practical use cases it makes a dedicated hardware wallet redundant.

FinSMEs

31/10/2022