TRM Labs valuation doubles to $2 billion as crypto crime fighter scales AI services

TRM Labs says it has doubled its valuation to $2 billion after an add-on to its September Series C round, a fresh boost that comes only months after the San Francisco startup was valued at $1 billion.

That’s a fast jump for a company that started by helping law enforcement follow crypto trails. But CEO Esteban Castano is now pushing a broader pitch: TRM isn’t just a blockchain forensics shop anymore. He wants it seen as a mapper of online crime, with AI making that job more urgent because it speeds up scams and lowers the skill needed to run them.

The new platform the company is rolling out is aimed at investigators working financial fraud, sextortion and child sexual abuse cases, all areas Castano says have worsened alongside AI tools such as deepfakes. TRM plans to announce the product publicly in November. Castano also says the company’s core crypto business remains strong, and he frames AI as a second growth engine rather than a replacement.

There’s some history behind the move. When Castano launched TRM in 2018, rivals such as Chainalysis, Elliptic and CipherTrace were already tracing Bitcoin-linked money flows. TRM carved out ground by tracking newer assets like Ethereum and Tron, which criminals also used, alongside cash. Castano says that broader view of criminal networks is now paying off as the company goes after a wider set of threats.

He declined to say how much capital was raised to get to the new valuation, calling it modest and saying the money came from existing backers. TRM expects to hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue in the coming weeks. As of early September, it had around 500 employees and offices in London, Singapore and Washington, DC.