Private-key management startup receives funding from Multicoin, Binance, Coinbase

Private-key management company Torus has just closed a seed round, pocketing $2 million in funding, Coindesk writes. While the round was led by Multicoin Capital, the startup got $500,000 from Binance Labs; other companies, Coinbase Ventures, Sixth Horizon, Accomplice and Terminal, also participated.

Torus is working on public and private-key management, which according to Multcoin’s Kyle Samani is a serious issue currently slowing “the adoption of web3.”

Torus CEO Zhen Yu Yong believes blockchain is difficult for people to start using and to interact with, even if they could be potentially interested in “the concept of decentralization.”

“We just wanted to abstract that all away for new users so they could be left with a simple, secure, as well as, seamless solution,” Zhen said.

Torus uses the sharding process to split sensitive information and store it across multiple servers for security purposes. This way, in case of a hack, the attacker will have a difficult time accessing people’s private keys.

To make the key management more accessible to users, the company has introduced on-ramp integrations “indistinguishable from the login flow for web2 apps” like Facebook.

A beta testnet for Ethereum is already available for users. Torus is planning to launch tools for other blockchains, such as Tron and EOS.