London-based cybersecurity startup Red Sift raise $8.8m Series A round led by MMC Ventures

Red Sift, the cognitive data platform that provides cloud-based email security solutions, has closed a $8.8m Series A investment round.

Venture capital firm MMC Ventures led the round. The investor has previously participated in the £2m round raised by TreasurySpring, a company connecting cash rich firms with institutional borrowers.

“We’ve been tracking the team at Red Sift from the very early stages of the business and we’ve been consistently impressed with their ability to execute and achieve their goals,” said Mina Samaan, investment manager at MMC Ventures. “We look forward to working with Rahul, Randal and the rest of the team as they enter the next phase of growth.

New investor In-Q-Tel, the US not-for-profit strategic investor, also participated in the round. The investor invested an undisclosed amount in data security solution Enveil in 2017.

Global VC firm White Star Capital, which closed a $180m fund in 2018, and Oxford Capital also participated in Red Sift’s new round.

CEO Rahul Powar and Randal Pinto founded Red Sift in 2015. And the former is making no secret as to why.

“We live in a world where users are told to simply accept that email has a fundamental security flaw and organisations transfer the onus of detection onto their busy employees,” said Powar. “Meanwhile, it’s getting more difficult to identify these rogue messages as the targeting and sophistication of the attacks mature. This is exactly why Business Email Compromise (BEC) is a growing threat for all types of organisations.

“The bruising reality for businesses is that it is around 400 times more expensive to defend against an attack than it is to launch one, meaning the economics of cybersecurity have to date, always favoured the largest businesses with the deepest pockets. It’s through our serverless data platform, Red Sift, that we are able to offer intelligent and accessible SaaS solutions that combine modern security standards with the latest machine learning techniques to make it easier for organisations to reduce the threats their users face every day.

“This funding round will help us to continue developing transformational cybersecurity solutions essential for everyday cybersecurity for all types of organisations. We’re thankful to our new investors for their specialised insights and support in helping us to realise our vision as we continue to grow our strong EMEA customer base and expand into the US.”

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