Graph-based security analysis start-up raises €3m in funding round led by Notion Capital

Cyscale’s ‘Security Knowledge Graph™’ provides contextual analysis, reducing false positives, and prioritizing high-risk items

Offers cyber-security for a shifting paradigm in organizations’ server infrastructure

The funding will be used to grow the team and enable international expansion 

LONDON, Thursday 19th May 2022 – Cyscale, a graph-based cloud security analysis company, today announces the successful completion of a €3m funding round. 

The round was led by Notion Capital, with participation from Seedcamp, GapMinder, Micha Hernandez van Leuffen, previously founder of Wercker and now Fiberplane and NP-Hard Ventures; and David Mytton, founder of Console.dev and Server Density.

Within most modern infrastructures, all cyber assets are interconnected, generating a massive digital footprint for organizations. Understanding risk is therefore of critical importance. It can make the difference between a security programme that works, and alert fatigue that burdens security and development teams. 

Manuela Ticudean, co-founder of Cyscale, explains, “The cybersecurity industry needs to shift toward understanding cyber risk in context. Only then will we be able to fight the increasingly sophisticated and advanced threats targeting our organizations and our lives.”

“Most cloud security tools analyze cloud infrastructures by running through sets of configuration best practices and verifying them against each cloud resource,” she continues. “This approach can be useful, but the problem is the rate of false positives. Looked at in isolation, a resource may be misconfigured, but there are other contextual factors that determine the actual danger for a business. False positives create noise and keep security engineers from focusing on the highest-risk issues. As a result, businesses waste valuable time and risk becoming the victims of cyber-attacks.”

Cyscale co-founder, Ovidiu Cical, adds, “Security risks aren’t limited to an organization’s cloud infrastructure. Adjacent components such as third-party software packages used in applications, software development practices, and code repositories are all examples of risk areas in modern tech ecosystems. Most of the time, companies assess risk in each of these areas in isolation, based on skillsets in the team or available resources. The result is a fragmented security function, with no clear understanding where weaknesses lie and what their impact truly is. 

Cyscale aims to fix this situation by building a comprehensive ‘Security Knowledge Graph™’ for an organization, ingesting data from multiple sources and generating an in-depth contextual analysis for each of its cloud assets. Leaving no risk or misconfiguration uncovered, it allows security teams to prioritize the remediation of high-risk issues. In addition, Cyscale has built a powerful compliance module that helps security leaders track gaps between any policies they’ve defined and their technical implementations in the cloud. 

Cyscale co-founder, Ovidiu Cical continues,“We are excited. Our solution is applicable to a universe of challenges relating to cybersecurity contextualisation, and we are standing in front of a great opportunity to work with a huge number of companies, and to scale quickly and effectively. We look forward to continuing our rapid growth”

Kamil Mieczakowski, principal at Notion Capital, says of investing in Cyscale, “Over the past five years, we’ve witnessed a paradigm shift in how enterprises run their server infrastructures. But the cybersecurity industry hasn’t kept up. We’re really excited to be partnering with Manuela, Ovidiu, and the Cyscale team as they develop what we see as the most compelling cloud visibility and control platform for the modern enterprise.”

Carlos Eduardo Espinal, managing partner at Seedcamp, adds, “The experience of Cyscale’s founders speaks for itself. Both Manuela and Ovidiu are highly skilled and highly valued members of the cybersecurity community. Their belief in the importance of context in cybersecurity analysis is a vital step in ensuring the effective and precise protection of an organization’s cloud infrastructure.”

Dan Mihăescu, Founding Partner GapMinder BV: “We are happy to follow on and invest further into Cyscale. It is an important phase in the company’s development, doing a lot of international steps, maturing the platform, and preparing for further scaling up outside Europe to the US and Asia. From the early beginnings, we believed in the team and we continue to support their further growth to achieve their vision of becoming a leader in cloud cybersecurity.”

Founded in Romania in 2019, the company raised €350,000 on SeedBlink in 2021, ensuring sufficient working capital for 12 months for a small team of passionate and driven people

— ENDS –

About Cyscale

Cyscale is a start-up based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, that develops protection software solutions for information stored in the cloud, and that performs data risk analysis. The company was founded by Manuela Țicudean, Ovidiu Cical, and Andrei Milaș. The vision of the co-founders is to protect the applications and data of companies that choose cloud technology, and help them become more competitive through digitization. 

About Notion Capital

Notion Capital is a European B2B SaaS and Cloud VC with more than $700m assets under management, with more than 100 investments to date. The Notion team founded, built and exited two highly successful SaaS businesses – Star and MessageLabs – and invests exclusively in exceptional founders with the ambition to build global category leaders. The Notion portfolio includes Currencycloud, Dixa, GoCardless, Mews, Paddle, Tradeshift and Unbabel. Notion is also the founder of Included VC, the venture capital fellowship for individuals from diverse and overlooked communities from around the world.

About Seedcamp

Seedcamp is Europe’s seed fund, identifying and investing early in world-class founders attacking large, global markets and solving real problems using technology. The Seedcamp Nation includes over 430 startups building breakout businesses that change the way people live, interact and buy and includes publicly listed UiPath, Wise, and unicorns Revolut, Hopin, Sorare, Pleo, wefox, Grover and viz.ai along with fast-growing businesses such as Ezra, THIS and Synthesia. Seedcamp fast-tracks a founder’s vision and creates value through immediate access to smart capital, a lifelong community of support, and a global network built upon more than a decade’s experience backing exceptional talent.

About GapMinder Venture Partners BV

GapMinder is a EUR 50 million venture capital fund that invests in technology companies created in Romania and Central Europe, growing rapidly internationally and in the Seed or Series A phase. GapMinder partners have a direct approach as investors, helping companies grow through strategic consulting and direct involvement in the operational organization, corporate governance, and financial discipline. GapMinder’s portfolio includes companies such as FintechOS, TypingDNA, DruidAI, Deepstash, SmartDreamers, Soleadify, Machinations, Frisbo, Innoship.io, Cartloop. GapMinder is co-financed mostly by the 2014-2020 Competitiveness Operational Program.

Contact

Ben Goldsmith

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