Security-focused Web3 dev tool startup Cubist raises $7M

BLOCKCHAIN

Cubist Inc., a provider of security-focused Web3 developer tools, said today that it has raised $7 million in seed funding to help developers build decentralized apps faster and more safely while backed by industry best practices.

The Web3 industry is built on peer-to-peer blockchain technology using smart contracts that rely heavily on custom infrastructure and varied languages, protocols and differing security solutions. That means developers often find themselves pulling together tools from different sources, which are sometimes incompatible, and that leaves them susceptible to dangers.

Blockchain technology-focused venture capital firm Polychain Capital led the round with participation from Dao5, Amplify Partners, Polygon, Blizzard and Axelar. The company said that it would use the funds to accelerate its product development and grow its teams to help developers secure their applications.

“The future of Web3 will be powered by dapp developers building amazing applications,” said Riad Wahby, co-founder and chief executive of Cubist. “However, this future will not be possible if developers must continue to build custom tooling and infrastructure, stitch together incompatible point solutions, and lose sleep over the security of their tech stacks. This stifles innovation and leads to serious security vulnerabilities.”

Cubist’s flagship offering is a newly released software development kit that provides developers with a way to build and test decentralized apps for multiple and cross-blockchain environments. This is useful for developers because there are a lot of blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Tezos and others, all of which support dapps. By allowing developers to write code as if it’s running on a single chain, and change chains or bridges with a single line of configuration, the company hopes to ease development time.

It’s also building a test framework for Web3 dapps with a testnet before deploying onto any chains so they can be put through their paces. The framework includes testnet libraries and funded test accounts for many chains, plus simulation testing for high latency, random conditions and other issues. The objective is to provide the best tools for developers to hammer out issues in their code before its deployed.

With security in mind, the Cubist team is developing an authentication and security solution for wallet management that will provide proactive monitoring and access controls for authentication. That way cryptocurrencies and tokens can be managed in a secure way without developers worrying that something could be easily stolen by compromises or insider threats.

Developers can sign up for early access to these testing and security solutions on the company’s website.

“Even some of the most exciting innovations in Web3 have suffered from technical mistakes that are easy to make, expensive to find, and hard to fix. The problem is that developers simply don’t have the tools they need to prevent these critical errors,” said Ann Stefan, co-founder and chief operating officer of Cubist. “Cubist takes a security-first approach that gives developers peace of mind at every stage of development.”

With this seed funding, Cubist said, it will be able to expand its team and scale its technological capabilities. The team also intends to accelerate product development, including building its security and testing solutions.

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