Blockchain security startup Mamori raises $5M to use machine learning to detect exploits

Blockchain security startup Mamori today announced it has secured $5 million in seed funding for its platform that uses machine learning to detect and remediate exploits.

The round was led by Blockchain Capital. Velocity Capital and Web3.com also participated in the round, the company said, along with angel investors Grigore Rosu, Daniel Lubarov, Alex Watts, Bo Du, Shujia Liang, Micheal Heinrich and Antonio Viggiano.

The company uses machine learning algorithms to pathfind through blockchain code to discover issues in smart contracts, which are self-executing computer programs that when triggered by certain conditions. These smart contracts are computer code that can contain undiscovered so-called “zero-day” exploits, which are difficult for algorithms designed to notice known historical flaws.

Smart contracts are fundamental to blockchain applications for making token economies work for executing trades, making loans, generating interest and dividends, allowing developers to create complex systems such as blockchain-based video games. The more complex a blockchain application becomes alongside the smart contracts it’s built on, the greater the chances that a vulnerability could exist within the code.

Mamori said that it uses “interdisciplinary technologies” to protect against “unknown unknowns” and detect these vulnerabilities before they become actual problems in code. The same machine learning algorithms can be applied to address scalability and automation challenges, the company said.

“Mamori’s tools help eliminate programming errors while learning the contract specification, semantics-based formal verification tools prove the program correct with regards to the specification, then the correctness proof is [zero-knowledged] and posted on-chain as verifiable evidence,” Mamori Adviser Grigore Rosu said in a statement.

The company said that it hopes that this new machine learning-led method for approaching vulnerabilities and programming challenges in blockchain code will help developers create safer, better-optimized smart contracts.

“Increasing innovation around smart contract safety and security will be fundamental to large-scale adoption of crypto,” said Joshua Rivera, operating partner and general counsel of Blockchain Capital.

The number of blockchain security incidents during 2023 included over 700 exploits triggered by smart contract vulnerabilities, which generated more than $2.4 billion in losses. Blockchain companies spend billions of dollars on audits and security teams keeping their smart contracts tested before deployment and it’s still imperfect.

Image: Nepool