Atlanta-based fintech company Bluefin, known for offering payment and data security for small and medium-sized businesses, announced a $25 million in growth financing from Macquarie Capital Principal Finance.
Macquarie joins current Bluefin investors Napier Park and Camden Partners.
Bluefin’s work, with specializes in securing Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Protected Health Information (PHI) and financial card data through omni-channel encryption and tokenization solutions, is working to limit data breaches, which on average cost US companies close to $9 million.
“As a payment and data security provider, we have seen a heightened emphasis on securing networks, systems and card acceptance points over the last 10 months,” Bluefin CEO John Perry told Hypepotamus. “The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about several changes to the fintech space, especially the transition to a remote, work from home environment, which is often not as secure as an in-office environment due to the expanded security perimeter beyond a central location.”
“Bluefin has developed industry-leading data and payment protection technologies, which are crucial in the global climate of rising data breaches and cyberattacks against organizations of all sizes,” said Macquarie Capital’ Anand Subramanian. “We are very pleased to partner with this innovative company to expand their cybersecurity product suite and fuel continued growth in the US and internationally.”
According to Perry, the company has witnessed several unique shifts in the cybersecurity and fintech space this year. In the payment space, Perry notes that “consumer reluctance to touch point-of-sale payment terminals has grown, resulting in the increased demand for contactless payment options. Since Bluefin provides over 80 PCI-validated point-to-point encryption (P2PE) terminals through our products and through our partner network of over 130 processors, payment gateways and software vendors, we have seen a rising demand for these devices.”
Additionally, Perry notes that hackers have even more opportunities as more people turn online for shopping. “In Ecommerce, we’ve seen a demand for more fraud and chargeback management services on our payment gateway. We expect the need for expertise and innovative solutions when it comes to securing company systems, point-of-sale terminals and e-commerce environments to continue well into 2021,” said Perry.
Approximately 50 out of the company’s 120 employees and the majority of the Executive Management team are still in Atlanta. According to Perry, Bluefin expects to expand their Atlanta-based team in the next 12 months.
