Spring Labs Blockchain Startup Supported By Former White House Adviser Raises $23 Million

Spring Labs, a blockchain startup along with former White House adviser Gary Cohn on its advisory board, has raised $23 million in financing the projects aimed at fighting fraud in the financial industry, Bloomberg reports.

Spring Labs’ Mission

The company founded in 2017 is creating Spring Protocol, a blockchain-based platform that combines decentralized technologies, anonymization, and advanced cryptography. It will allow financial service companies to exchange data quickly and securely in order to prevent various types of financial fraud. The company plans to deploy the platform next year, however, it has already attracted the attention of several high-profile investors. Thus the seed funding round brought the company $14.75 million in 2018. In the Series-A round that finished on June 12, the startup attracted $23 million to finance the expansion and further development of its products. According to Spring Labs’s co-founder and chief executive, Adam Jiwan, the latest round of financing was heavily oversubscribed, meaning that not everyone interested got the chance to participate. While they ‘could raise much more capital, they preferred to take only as much as they needed,’ he explained. The company will spend the capital raised on increasing the number of employees from 35 to 55 to help speed up product development.

Who Backs The Project?

Spring Labs received financing from a number of high-profile investors, like the venture capital arm of General Motors and an investment firm GreatPoint Ventures with 36 startups in its investment portfolio. Other participants included Michael Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital, The Pritzker Group, and Multicore Capital. GreatPoint Ventures led the round, though the company refused to disclose information on how the $23 million was broken up among the investors. Notably, Gary Cohn, the former economic advisor of the US president Donald Trump and the head of Goldman Sachs Group, supports the project and serves as Board Director on regulatory matters. According to Jiwan, Cohn has helped to develop strong partnership relations with financial institutions. Cohn came to Spring Labs in October and joined a dream team of advisors including Sheila Bair, former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and Nigel Morris, from Capital One Financial Corp. Do you think high-profile investors make a project trustworthy? Does Spring Labs have potential? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.