Former DOJ Special Agent Raises $4.3 Million to Fight Crypto Crime

CAT Labs Founder is Lilita Infante, a former DOJ Special Agent, who took down the largest and longest-running dark web market in the world

MIAMI,Fla., April 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- CAT Labs, a start-up building forensic and cybersecurity tools to fight crypto-enabled crime, raised $4.3M in its pre-seed round led by Castle Island Ventures, Brevan Howard Digital, CMT Digital, and RW3 Ventures. Other participating investors include Newark Venture Partners, Hash3, Borderless Capital, Cryptoverse Ventures, and Outshine Ventures. CAT Labs was founded by a former DOJ Special Agent, Lilita (Lili) Infante, who pioneered the first task force focused exclusively on dark web and crypto-enabled crime to solve some of the most challenging and high-profile crypto cases. Infante was the lead agent on the case that took down Hydra Market - the largest and longest-running dark web market in the world - which accounted for 80% of all dark web cryptocurrency transactions and served as one of the largest global crypto laundering platforms.

The global cost of cybercrime is expected to reach 10.5tr by 2025. CAT Labs is building digital asset recovery and cybersecurity tools to enable governments to fight crypto crime. CAT Labs' digital asset recovery tool specializes in finding, identifying, analyzing, and seizing digital assets in criminal cases, allowing US government agencies, state, and local police departments, as well as US-allied countries, to accurately and efficiently process digital assets involved in criminal investigations.

"The explosion of crypto-targeted crimes like hacks, scams, and fraud is the biggest threat to the Web3 and DeFi revolution," said Lili Infante, Founder at CAT Labs "We at CAT Labs see the incredible potential of distributed ledger technology as the future of the digital world. Our elite team of crypto forensics and cybersecurity professionals is working tirelessly to make this industry safe and secure by building tools to enable law enforcement to address crypto-enabled crime and by protecting investors from digital asset theft."

In addition to helping governments address crypto-enabled crime, CAT Labs is building proactive cybersecurity tools to prevent hacks, scams, and fraud from happening in the first place and protecting investors from digital asset theft.  Their cybersecurity offering includes a range of solutions from virtual cybersecurity support for crypto firms to specialized crypto cybersecurity tools. The CAT Labs cybersecurity team is already working closely with private sector customers to resolve highly-visible hacks and harden the cybersecurity system.

The CAT Labs executive team is the "Special Forces" of crypto forensics and cybersecurity and includes Chief Security Officer, Uri Stav, former Chief Security and Development Officer of the Digital Currency Group (DCG) and its wholly-owned subsidiaries; Head of Growth, Monica Arias, a former Chainalysis business development lead; Head of Digital Forensics, John Hays, a former DOJ lead in forensic digital asset recovery; Head of Technology, Misha Hanin, an expert and thought leader in IT architecture, blockchain software development, and crypto cybersecurity; and Head of R&D, Roger Hallman, a Dartmouth Ph.D. candidate and former Computer Science and Cybersecurity expert at the Naval Information Warfare Center.

Ria Bhutoria, General Partner at Castle Island Ventures said, "We believe CAT Labs is building foundational compliance and security infrastructure that is necessary for the digital asset ecosystem to flourish and mature. We could think of no one better equipped to address this problem set than Lili Infante who brings world-class domain expertise, experience, passion, and leadership. We are thrilled to back her in this endeavor.

"We are thrilled to support CAT Labs in their mission to combat crypto-enabled crime. At RW3 Ventures, we believe that a thriving crypto economy depends on Law Enforcement having the necessary tools to protect market integrity," said Pete Najarian, Managing Partner at RW3 Ventures.  "Lili and the CAT Labs team have the perfect experience to properly build and enable these solutions."

"We are extremely excited to back Lili and her talented team as they build mission-critical tools to protect investors and ward off bad actors in the crypto space," said Sam Hallene, an investor at CMT Digital. "We believe that Lili's deep background in cyber forensics after more than ten years as a U.S. DOJ Special Agent makes her the ideal person to successfully attack this massive challenge. We are thrilled to partner with the CAT Labs team on this journey."

Colleen Sullivan, Co-Head Venture Brevan Howard Digital said, "Illicit transactions involving cryptocurrencies hit an all-time high of $20.1 billion in 2022, which was also a year during which the industry
experienced an unprecedented cascade of bankruptcies and fraudulent activities. In order for the crypto ecosystem to thrive and grow, first and foremost, it must be a safe place for participants. We have a strong investment thesis to back exceptional founders building products and services in the crypto industry to better equip the public and private sector to detect and catch criminals and to better protect their internal systems from theft. Lili Infante, who previously spent 10 years at the US Department of Justice as a special agent and founded a DOJ task force focused on shutting down illegal networks using cryptocurrencies, is the ideal entrepreneur to bring these products and services to the market and we are thrilled to support her and the entire CAT Labs team."

About CAT Labs:

CAT Labs is building digital asset recovery and cybersecurity tools to enable governments to fight crypto crime and to protect investors from hacks, fraud, and scams. Visit catlabs.io for more information.

SOURCE CAT Labs