London-based Metomic, a next-generation data security solution for protecting sensitive data in SaaS applications, announced on Wednesday, February 22, that it has raised $20M (approximately €18.92M) in a Series A round of funding.
The round was led by Evolution Equity Partners with participation from Resonance and Connect Ventures.
Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Partner at Evolution Equity Partners, says, “Businesses adopt SaaS applications at a rapid pace. While SaaS tools increase employees’ productivity and enable collaboration among colleagues and partners, IT security teams have limited visibility and control over sensitive data stored within these apps. Metomic gets it.”
“We believe their approach to SaaS data security can fill the gap by helping security teams control sensitive data and remain in compliance with regulations.”
Protect sensitive data across SaaS apps
Programmers Rich Vibert and Ben van Enckevort have been opening cloud apps like Slack and Google Drive almost daily for the past 10 years.
And as these apps grew in popularity, they realised that private data was being uploaded and shared more frequently every day. This was endangering the safety and privacy of common people.
In 2018, the founders decided to establish Metomic, a data-centric security software that protects sensitive data in SaaS applications.
Vibert says, “Security, IT and compliance teams have no visibility into the data employees are storing and sharing across third-party SaaS applications. They are suffering from alert fatigue and are overwhelmed with the number of notifications they have to address.”
“By triaging critical risks and putting remediation in the hands of employees, we give security teams the most effective, scalable, and modern way to protect their most vulnerable data, without getting in the way of high-value work,” adds Vibert.
The no-code processes from Metomic are used by security, privacy, and compliance teams to automate data rules throughout their SaaS apps.
This includes the capacity to immediately notify staff members when they upload confidential data into the incorrect setting, effectively allowing a human firewall throughout the organisation.
Metomic is giving organisations visibility and control of their data across collaborative SaaS applications, including Google Apps, Slack, Jira, and Zendesk, by connecting to the data layer of these work tools. It enables security experts to view the data that is being kept, its location, and its users.
Metomic reports that more than two million data breach risks lurking in SaaS networks over the past 18 months have been stopped by its automated platform.
It has also detected that SaaS applications contain hundreds of millions of sensitive data points, 99 per cent of which are unnecessary or available to unauthorised users.
Capital utilisation
Metomic says it will use the funds for expansion in the US, and research and development initiatives.
The money will also allow the startup to double down on its AI technology, furthering its mission to enable safer, more compliant data sharing across collaborative SaaS ecosystems.
The company has customers across Europe and North America, with 50 per cent of its customers based in the US.
It plans to quadruple its employee headcount by the end of the year, with its sales and marketing functions headquartered in the US.
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