Spycloud, specialist supplier of tools that prevent the takeover of internet accounts, has raised USD30m from its series C investment round. The additional funds will lift the total invested in Spycloud to USD58.5mn since the business was founded in 2016, including USD21mn from the series B round that closed last year.
The endless litany of data breaches and the vulnerability of online accounts means any automated tools to prevent account takeover are likely to enjoy a lucrative marketplace. Unlike other approaches to cybersecurity that focus on toughening the process of logging on, Spycloud identifies vulnerable employee and customer accounts and automates the process of remediation before those accounts are attacked by criminals. SpyCloud essentially does what criminals would do, but with greater efficiency, by compiling huge databases of previously compromised usernames and passwords and then checking them against all the accounts maintained by a business, as used either by employees or customers. When there is a match with the data in their repository, they proactively instigate an update to the account credentials.
The press release highlighted the company’s intention to offer protection to people outside of the traditional office environment. Ted Ross, CEO and co-founder of SpyCloud, observed:
With so many people now working from home and multiple family members sharing devices with a mix of personal and professional applications, attack surfaces have increased significantly. Criminals are certainly taking full advantage of these new opportunities to exploit your employees and their family members.
Spycloud is based in Austin, Texas, and will use the new investment to extend its product, engineering and sales teams both in the USA and overseas. The company intends to recruits 30 new employees, including machine learning developers and data scientists, to its existing staff of 70. The series C round was led by Centana Growth Partners and saw participation from all Spycloud’s existing investors: M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund), Altos Ventures, Silverton Partners and March Capital Partners.
