Today TRM Labs announced an investment from JP Morgan Chase. In December, the blockchain intelligence firm closed a $60 million Series B round led by Tiger Global that included a raft of big names in the payments sector: Amex Ventures, Visa, Citi Ventures, Block (formerly Square) and PayPal Ventures.
The startup targets cryptocurrency fraud and financial crime with transaction monitoring and forensic analysis tools. Implementing anti-money laundering protocols is critical for all these payment firms.
TRM Labs supports more than a dozen blockchains and provides cross-chain analytics to detect suspicious activity across multiple blockchains. It recently added the Solana blockchain.
“TRM’s vision to drive security and integrity in crypto ecosystems through sophisticated analytics solutions aligns with our ambitions for building blockchain products at J.P. Morgan that are compliant and secure,” said Umar Farooq, CEO, Onyx by J.P. Morgan. “We’ve spent the last six years exploring the possibilities and applicability of blockchain technology – leading infrastructure companies like TRM will help usher in the future of secure blockchain and crypto use cases.”
The forensics firm works with several cryptocurrency firms such as Circle, FTX US, MoonPay, and Anchorage as well as government agencies. However, in the latter case, the big hitter in the sector is Chainalysis which raised more than $350 million in funding and was valued at $4.2 billion in mid-2021. Today Chainalysis also announced that the world’s biggest custodian bank BNY Mellon was integrating its solutions. Other competitors include Softbank-backed Elliptic and Ciphertrace, which Mastercard acquired.
