TL;DR:
- Olympix, a New York-based cybersecurity startup, successfully closed a $4.3 million seed funding round led by Boldstart Ventures.
- The company, founded by Channi Greenwall, focuses on providing cybersecurity solutions for the crypto industry.
- Olympix’s first product enables developers to identify vulnerabilities in their code, aiming to address the increasing security challenges faced by the crypto ecosystem.
- The funding will be utilized to expand Olympix’s security offerings and enhance its proprietary large language model (LLM) for anomaly detection.
- By shifting more responsibility to developers and empowering them with advanced security tools, Olympix aims to improve overall cybersecurity in the crypto market.
Main AI News:
In a recent announcement, New York-based startup Olympix revealed the successful completion of a seed funding round, raising an impressive $4.3 million. The round was spearheaded by Boldstart Ventures and witnessed the participation of prominent backers, including Robot Ventures, Shrug Capital, Konstantin Richter from Blockdaemon, and Tarun Chitra from Gauntlet Networks.
Led by the visionary Channi Greenwall, Olympix stands as a pioneering cybersecurity software company with a specific focus on the crypto industry. Its inaugural product empowers developers by enabling them to identify vulnerabilities in their code effectively. Greenwall drew parallels between the current state of crypto security and the Web2 era a decade ago, emphasizing that numerous companies lack a chief security officer and allocate only a fraction of their budgets for security, as compared to the staggering $200 billion expended in 2023.
Greenwall asserts, “Innovation always precedes security. Security does not matter until it does.”
The previous year proved challenging for the crypto ecosystem, witnessing thefts amounting to $3.7 billion through DeFi hacks and exploits, as unveiled by a new report from TRM Labs, a leading blockchain analytics company. Greenwall elucidated that the transparent nature of crypto, coupled with the immutable characteristics of blockchain, amplifies the attack surface, rendering software updates significantly time-consuming and expensive. Hackers can effortlessly scrutinize the publicly available code and identify vulnerabilities by examining the “total volume locked” in different projects.
Many crypto firms rely on audits conducted by third-party entities such as Halborn and CertiK, a process that can be both costly and sluggish. Greenwall envisions Olympix shifting the responsibility to developers by equipping them with software that proactively detects potential vulnerabilities and exploits in their code.
Greenwall expounded, “When we’re looking at the enterprise-level crypto companies, security becomes their responsibility. You can’t solely rely on a Chief Technology Officer—you need to establish an internal security team of some form.”
Presently, Olympix is in the private alpha testing phase for its groundbreaking static analyzer. Leveraging a proprietary large language model (LLM), the analyzer demonstrates its prowess in identifying vulnerabilities. Already being utilized by 30 companies, Olympix has plans to expand its security offerings beyond the static analyzer, utilizing its seed funding to grow its LLM and explore the application of artificial intelligence for anomaly detection.
Tarun Chitra, an investor in Olympix and the founder of Gauntlet Networks, a prominent crypto firm, lauded Greenwall’s adept utilization of natural language processing to detect software bugs. He remarked, “The compelling thing about Channi’s vision of the world is she had this before things started actually blowing up with language models last year. She had this insight because she worked in security and had spent a lot of time thinking through some of the automation problems that one has.”
Eliot Durbin, the general partner at Boldstart, shed light on their decision to invest in Olympix, citing Greenwall’s background at Security Scorecard, a notable Web2 cybersecurity company, and the dearth of comparable solutions available in the market. Durbin believes that bolstering cybersecurity capabilities within the crypto realm and mitigating the frequency of hacks will enhance the appeal of blockchain for mainstream applications.
Durbin affirms, “She’s allowing smart contract developers to write better code faster, and if we can do that, we can grow the whole pie.”
Conclusion:
Olympix’s successful funding round and its commitment to revolutionizing crypto cybersecurity signify a growing recognition of the urgent need for enhanced security measures in the industry. As the crypto ecosystem continues to face significant challenges with regard to hacks and exploits, Olympix’s innovative solutions have the potential to significantly impact the market. By providing developers with powerful tools to identify vulnerabilities, the company aims to bolster security, making blockchain and cryptocurrencies more attractive for mainstream applications. The investment in Olympix not only demonstrates confidence in the company but also highlights the increasing importance of cybersecurity in the evolving landscape of the crypto market.
