Silence Laboratories, a startup that utilizes multiparty computation (MPC) to build infrastructure for enterprises to maintain data privacy and security, has announced a $4.1 million funding round.

The recent funding, co-led by Pi Ventures and Kira Studio, brings the total raised to $6 million, in addition to angel investors. The funds will be used to expand teams and enhance research and development efforts.

Using MPC, a subset of cryptography, the startup's infrastructure allows collaboration between two or more parties without exposing sensitive information to each other.

Founded in 2021 by Dr. Jay Prakash (CEO), Dr. Andrei Bytes (CTO), and Dr. Tony Quek, Silence emerged from over a decade of research and development in applied cryptography and application security. Initially focused on multifactor authentication (MFA), the company pivoted to become a cryptographic security firm.

Consumer concerns regarding data privacy are increasing, prompting global regulators to impose stricter data privacy regulations. Large corporations are now accountable for managing data and safeguarding it against potential breaches by hackers.

According to Prakash, the company identified a market fit in privacy-preserving decentralized authorization and computation when engaging with early customers developing digital asset-based products. Subsequently, the team developed cryptographic libraries to address the issue of exposing sensitive information to reduce the risks of hacking and data breaches.

Products and users

Offering products utilizing MPC technology, Silence Laboratories provides Silent Shard and Silent Compute.

Silent Shard, audited by Trail of Bits, helps enterprises and users reduce the exposure of private keys and implement advanced authorization rules. Recently, the company launched Silent Compute, enabling corporations to collaborate on data processing without sharing private data, enhancing insights while ensuring compliance and trust.

Operating on a B2B licensing model, Silence's libraries offer various features and wrappers for platform-agnostic use. The target customers include digital asset enterprises, financial institutions, healthcare providers, and telecommunication companies.

Silence currently serves over 20 enterprise clients, including BitGo, MetaMask, and EigenLayer. The company's revenue stands at around $500,000 annually, determined by the number of accounts and features supported.

Prakash mentioned that pricing varies based on customer categories, such as large enterprises, medium-scale businesses, or early-stage companies requiring initial support.

In recent years, several large crypto firms have integrated MPC capabilities through acquisitions. The market for privacy-enhancing technologies like MPC is projected to reach $25.8 billion by 2033, a significant increase from $2.4 billion in 2023.

Kira Studio founding partner and former Polygon co-founder Anurag Arjun praised the Silence team for their cryptography expertise and innovative privacy and authentication products. He noted the immense potential for privacy-preserving infrastructure combined with blockchain and fintech applications.

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