A company launching Monday combines two well-known and growing sectors. Lockchain.ai is developing a risk management platform for the blockchain by utilizing the power of artificial intelligence.

What Happened: Launched as the first artificial intelligence-powered blockchain risk management platform, Lockchain.ai emerged from stealth mode Monday and announced key investors and a management team.

Lockchain.ai was founded by experienced cybersecurity CEOs Aidan Kehoe and Andrew Howard and counts RSE Ventures co-founder and CEO and guest Shark on “Shark Tank” Matt Higgins as a co-founder.

Kehoe is the former CEO of SKOUT Cybersecurity, which was acquired by Barracuda Networks in 2022. Howard, the former CEO of Kudelski Security, is the CEO of Lockchain.ai.

The trio noticed a “glaring need” in blockchain security for further security and due diligence services. The goal of Lockchain.ai is to “bring easy-to-use, effective security and risk mitigation solutions to businesses interacting with blockchain technology and digital assets.”

An investment seed round for the company of $4.6 million was led by Lerer Hippeau. Other investors in the funding round included Arrington Capital, Valhalla Ventures, ARCA, RSE/Vayner, Sonic Boom Ventures, Alexi Weiss of Clear Sky Capital and Artico Search. White Star Capital invested in a subsequent funding cycle.

In an interview with Benzinga, Howard highlighted the role the investors and board members have played in the creation of the company. The board members include former Algorand CEO Steve Kokinos.

“Our board and investors have been close partners throughout this company build. From advisors to potential clients, they have been amazing,” Howard told Benzinga.

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About Lockchain.ai: The newly formed company is bringing automated risk management solutions to traders, investors and fund managers for the blockchain ecosystem.

The company leverages generative artificial intelligence to help with speed, scalability, transparency and security for the growing digital asset sector.

Lockchain.ai can also help asset managers with compliance of on and off-chain balances related to Bitcoin ETFs.

“We are a group of security experts who have worked in the blockchain ecosystem for the last several years,” Howard told Benzinga.

“As we built the thesis for the company, we spoke to anyone we could in the space. It become clear quickly that traders, hedge funds, and asset managers are underserved with security.”

The company’s SaaS platform provides due diligence and risk monitoring that includes instant notifications, insights on potential effects of events, predictive impact analysis of contagion risk and real-time views of risk status.

What’s Next: Howard told Benzinga that Lockchain.ai leverages huge amounts of data from sources like OpenAI.

“Finding truth within data is complex and AI does a lot of the work with us,” Howard said.

The Lockchain.ai CEO and co-founder said the company monitors on- and off-chain events and can provide indicators that incidents are coming.

“The first step in any risk management plan is to gain visibility to the potential risks. You cannot fix what you cannot measure.”

One of the items that could grow the need for blockchain risk management is the approval of Bitcoin ETFs and more traditional finance institutions in the blockchain ecosystem, Howard said.

“These types of institutions are used to having risk management tools available to them. We formed this company during the crypto winter, knowing that this was a good time to build. We knew that these ETFs were a possibility and built our solution with them in mind.”

Howard said Lockchain.ai “wanted to fill the gap and make it easier for traditional financial institutions and traders to operate in the blockchain ecosystem with a level of security.”

The Lockchain.ai website went live Monday, and the company will host a webinar on April 9 to share more information and key issues impacting the digital currency management.

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Lockchain.ai CEO Andrew Howard. Courtesy photo.