TL;DR: In this episode, NCNG host Raphael Rocher speaks with Anoop Nannra, Co‑Founder & CEO of Trugard, a real‑time smart‑contract risk and threat‑intelligence data platform. Anoop shares his decade-long journey in blockchain and security: from building a Layer‑1 at Cisco and helping launch the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, to running AWS’s blockchain partner business—and explains how those experiences shaped Trugard’s mission: advocating for safer Web3 and better cybersecurity practices. He breaks down how Trugard scales with a small team by relying on automation and rigorous engineering, indexing millions of contracts across multiple networks and continuously identifying high‑risk contracts and malicious deployers. The conversation also explores Trugard’s hiring philosophy (a “three pillar” skill framework), Anoop’s view on “redemocratizing” Web3 by celebrating builders over whales, and why Trugard focuses specifically on smart contracts rather than being an audit firm or transaction monitor. Finally, Anoop highlights the Web3 Security Coalition, a minimal‑viable ecosystem of partners spanning discovery to recovery, designed to help users feel confident throughout their digital‑assets journey.
Context
Raphael Rocher welcomes Anoop Nannra, Co‑Founder & CEO of Trugard, to discuss why smart‑contract risk intelligence is becoming essential to user safety in Web3. Anoop introduces Trugard as a real‑time smart‑contract risk and threat‑intelligence data platform, explains the company’s cybersecurity‑first thesis, and shares how Trugard has scaled rapidly with a small team through automation and rigorous engineering practices.
They explore Anoop’s background (Cisco, AWS, early enterprise Ethereum efforts), how Trugard approaches talent and technical excellence, and his broader vision for “redemocratizing” Web3 by focusing attention back on builders and real-world socioeconomic enablement. The discussion wraps with Trugard’s “minimal viable ecosystem” approach through the Web3 Security Coalition, designed to support users from discovery to recovery.
Conversation Transcript
Introduction
Raphael Rocher (Host, NCNG): Let’s go. Maybe to start you can introduce yourself and describe your business in a few sentences.
Anoop Nannra (Co‑Founder & CEO, Trugard): I’m Anoop Nannra. I’m the co founder CEO of Trugard. We are a real time smart contract risk and intelligence data platform.
Background: Cisco, AWS, and Early Enterprise Web3
Anoop Nannra (Co‑Founder & CEO, Trugard): I have been in the blockchain space almost 10 years now. Started my journey at Cisco where we built our own layer one, deployed that around the world.
We looked at blockchain technology and fundamentally realized that it was a networking technology that has some really interesting intersection with cryptography and storage.
Then also went to AWS to run the blockchain partner business. Did that for a few years.
While I was at Cisco I launched and ran the world’s first Blockchain and IoT Industry Group… And I also helped start the enterprise Ethereum alliance… that was the start of enterprise Ethereum alliance.
I’ve been a long time critic of the lack of cybersecurity, threat intelligence, and adherence to improving safety and security and advocating for users in Web3. That was the primary motivation for starting Trugard, almost two and a half years ago.
Scaling Fast with a Small Team
Raphael Rocher (Host, NCNG): You’ve been growing very fast with a very small team. Can you tell us how it happens? What’s the secret ingredient?
Anoop Nannra (Co‑Founder & CEO, Trugard): Our business is fundamentally driven by technology. You need to be thinking about how do you scale with technology as opposed to people.
For us it’s very important that we bring a degree of rigor from an engineering and technical and research mindset, and build the platform so it is ready for enterprise grade or enterprise scale use cases.
We’re a very small team… barely pushing double digits. But we can onboard and index over 21 million smart contracts across seven networks, identify over a million contracts with some degree of risk, and identify over 65,000 wallets that are constantly deploying malicious smart contracts.
We can take our entire technology stack—which scales beautifully in the cloud—and run it on two Raspberry PIs. That matters because it opens the door to what I call a decentralized secops model in a fully perimeterless operational model.
Hiring for Deep Technical Excellence
Raphael Rocher (Host, NCNG): How do you end up with such a good tech? How do you find the right profiles and keep them with you?
Anoop Nannra (Co‑Founder & CEO, Trugard): At Cisco we had to figure out how to find the right kind of talent. In 2015–2017, you couldn’t go and hire a blockchain engineer— it didn’t exist.
We dissected the skills we needed into three buckets: (1) engineers who understand how data is validated between multiple writers and readers (and how databases manage conflict), (2) people who truly understand cryptography, and (3) people who understand distributed computing and how nodes synchronize reads and writes across distance.
If we could find someone with two out of those three pillars, we could bring them up on the third. That same mindset is how we build for Web3 security today.
This is a fast moving space. People are always looking at something new—and the new and novel thing usually has gaps from a cybersecurity perspective. That helps us retain the team, because they’re always solving new problems.
“Redemocratizing” Web3
Raphael Rocher (Host, NCNG): Can you explain your concept of democratizing—or redemocratizing—Web3?
Anoop Nannra (Co‑Founder & CEO, Trugard): I viewed the technology from a socioeconomic perspective. Decentralization was democratizing innovation itself: many people innovating at the same time, learning off of each other, with no central organization leading the charge.
But the top news cycle in Web3 is often about the movement of whales. I would love for everyone to become a crypto whale, that’s part of the promise, but we need to celebrate builders more, and pay less attention to what whales are doing.
From a Trugard perspective, we want to enable the next 8 billion people to come onboard into this digital assets landscape and deliver the original vision, going back to the Bitcoin white paper, in a way that’s applicable and accessible to everyone.
What Trugard Does (and Doesn’t) Do
Raphael Rocher (Host, NCNG): Anything else you want to cover or highlight about the business?
Anoop Nannra (Co‑Founder & CEO, Trugard): One thing that’s important is that we’re making the proactive decision to not do everything on our own. We believe in building minimal viable ecosystems.
Trugard is not an audit firm. Trugard does not monitor transactions. We focus, actually we are laser focused on smart contracts.
The Web3 Security Coalition: Discovery to Recovery
Anoop Nannra (Co‑Founder & CEO, Trugard): We created a Web3 Security Coalition. If projects need audits—or if we identify that a contract could be improved—we have audit partners we can bring in.
And because cybersecurity is a continuous cat and mouse game, for things that fall through the cracks we have a coalition member that is one of the world’s best in crypto cybercrime investigations and asset recovery.
Now we have a minimum viable ecosystem that has users covered from discovery to recovery: discover good projects, understand whether the software is good, detect threats and risk, and if something goes wrong, have support for investigation and recovery.
Raphael Rocher (Host, NCNG): Is it okay if I use the name Web3 Security Coalition?
Anoop Nannra (Co‑Founder & CEO, Trugard): Yeah, that’s exactly what it’s called.
Raphael Rocher (Host, NCNG): Thank you very much.
About Trugard
Trugard is a real‑time Web3 intelligence and security platform focused on smart‑contract risk. It helps ecosystem stakeholders make informed, real‑time decisions by providing up‑to‑date smart‑contract intelligence coverage across supported networks, built to scale for enterprise-grade use cases while remaining lightweight and automation-first.