Atlanta-headquartered cybersecurity startup DefenseStorm has secured a $15 million Series A round, led by Georgian Partners, to accelerate company growth. This brings DefenseStorm’s outside investment to $30 million total, according to Crunchbase.
DefenseStorm’s cloud-based software helps regional and community banks and credit unions protect themselves from cyberattacks and stay compliant with security regulations.
“Georgian Partners saw great potential in our vertically-focused, integrated offering for the banking space,” CEO Harold Brewer tells Hypepotamus. The Toronto-based Georgian Partners provides growth equity to later-stage SaaS companies.
Brewer says the funds will be allocated for hiring in sales, account management and product development. He projects that the company will grow from 43 employees to nearly 70 by year’s end.
Founded in 2014, DefenseStorm fills the gap for smaller regional banks and credit unions that may not have the funds to bring on a full internal cybersecurity team.
Their GRID platform allows the DefenseStorm team and the financial institution’s leaders to co-manage and monitor cyberattack alerts.
“Understanding the unique drivers of the banking vertical allow us to bring tremendous value to our client base,” says Brewer.
“As we evolve the GRID, we see more banking-specific use cases for our security and compliance platform that are natural extensions to the work we do and the methods we use today. We expect to make some product offering announcements on those fronts before the current quarter ends.”
Brewer shares that DefenseStorm secured its largest client earlier this year — a $10 billion dollar bank on the West Coast — that proved their ability to scale upmarket.
“The leadership team at DefenseStorm and I, along with our Board, the Georgian Team and our associates across the US, are bullish about our growth prospects as we continue to provide real-time cyber safety and soundness to our clients,” says Brewer.
“We see Georgian’s investment as an endorsement of our track record of delivering value and as a springboard for accelerated growth and deeper partnership with our clients.”
