Asset Reality co-founder and CEO Aidan Larkin. Image: Asset Reality
Founded in 2020, the start-up has developed a platform to help companies and law enforcement agencies recover and manage stolen digital assets.
Asset Reality, a start-up that works to recover stolen digital assets, has raised $4.9m to significantly grow its teams.
The seed round was led by Framework Ventures, with participation from TechStars, The Fund and SGH Capital. The funding round also included angel investors such as Chris Adelsbach, a founding partner at Outrun Ventures.
Co-founded in 2020 by Irishman Aidan Larkin, Asset Reality has made a platform for companies investigating, managing and recovering digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
The start-up said its technology helps businesses and law enforcement agencies securely recover and manage criminally seized assets, by increasing the transparency of the entire process, while supporting victims of this type of digital crime.
The company has grown rapidly since its founding, with team members across Ireland, the UK and the US. The start-up said its team has experience in some of the world’s earliest crypto asset recovery cases, such as the assets seized from the Silk Road online drug emporium.
Asset Reality said it has already gained clients among Consensys for MetaMask users, along with government and law enforcement agencies. The company plans to use the seed funding to triple the size of its engineering team and expand its operations and growth management teams.
CEO Larkin said the recent collapse of institutions such as FTX, BlockFi, and Celsius, combined with exploits and hacks, have cost users billions of dollars worldwide.
He said these examples demonstrate a need for “sophisticated digital asset recovery tools” for both the public and private sector.
“The existing asset recovery system only recovers about 1pc of criminal proceeds globally, with the emergence of digital assets adding more complexity to those efforts,” Larkin said.
“Asset Reality will be the leading solution to tackle the recovery of the missing 99pc and build greater trust within the crypto industry by giving victims access to much-needed solutions”.
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