As traditional financial firms continue to explore the use of blockchain and digital assets, compliance tools to help manage regulatory and reputational risk are in high demand.  

Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs is winning support from legacy financial firms for its ability to help launch blockchain and digital asset initiatives by analyzing and investigating crypto-related fraud and financial crime. The firm provides tools to vet and assess risk from third-party service providers, flag suspicious transactions, and prevent money laundering and other crypto crime.  

While big banks consider blockchain and digital assets worth exploring – experts believe they have the potential to fundamentally rearchitect the way that finance works – they need to be more cautious than their upstart competitors.  

Thoma Bravo just led TRM’s $70 billion Series B extension, with participation from Goldman Sachs, PayPal Ventures, Amex Ventures, and Citi Ventures (while Visa and JPMorgan both invested in a previous round).  

In the same vein, Mastercard acquired TRM rival CipherTrace in September 2021 while competitor Chainanalysis recently raised $170 million. Overall, financial institutions are leading the way in public company blockchain investments.