Haun Ventures backs Chaos Labs with $55M Series A funding

Chaos Labs has closed a $55 million Series A funding round led by Haun Ventures, with participation from existing investors such as PayPal, Lightspeed, Galaxy Ventures, and Wintermute.

New investors backing the round also include F-Prime Capital, Slow Ventures, and The Spartan Group. 

The startup, based in New York City, is a cloud platform for securing blockchains. Among its clients are popular decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, including Aave, GMX and Jupiter. 

Chaos Labs offers contextualized data for risk management and economic security, helping protocols identify vulnerabilities and prevent exploits through simulation-based assessments. Its technology has secured $860 billion in cumulative trading volume, $25 billion in loans, and $35 million in incentives for over 20 crypto protocols it serves, said the company in a statement. According to Chaos Labs:  

“For DeFi to reach its full potential, we need more resilient systems that withstand volatile market conditions and economic manipulation; DeFi can’t beat CeFi if parameter updates remain a manual process.”

DeFi protocols continue to face significant security challenges, with hackers exploiting various vulnerabilities. By mid-2024, nearly $1.4 billion had been stolen from DeFi platforms, according to data from cybersecurity firm Cyvers. 

In the second quarter of 2024, access control breaches, primarily through phishing attacks, were responsible for the majority of stolen funds, totaling around $490 million. The amount is significantly higher than the less than $70 million lost to smart contract exploits during the same period.

Cyvers’ report notes that despite swift actions by DeFi protocols to freeze compromised contracts, the risk of exploits remains high as hackers continue to find new vulnerabilities, with cross-chain bridges being particularly targeted.

Chaos Labs will use the funds to develop new products that will provide real-time updates to onchain applications based on market conditions. 

In Feb. 2023, the startup raised $20 million in a seed round co-led by PayPal and Galaxy Ventures, along with 23 other venture firms and six angel investors.