Funding Round Led by Scale Venture Partners Will Spur Further Rapid Growth; Aid in Mission to Create a World Safe from Cyber-attacks

Agari, the leading provider of real-time, data-driven security solutions that detect and prevent advanced email cyber-attacks announced a $15 million Series C funding round led by Scale Venture Partners (ScaleVP). Existing investors Alloy Ventures, Battery Ventures, First Round Capital and others also participated in the round. The funding will fuel Agari’s rapid growth as the security leader helping global brands eliminate email threats, protect customers and their personal data, and preserve brand reputation. As part of this announcement, Ariel Tseitlin, partner at ScaleVP will join Agari’s board of directors. This latest investment brings Agari’s total funding to $22.7 million and comes on the heels of significant momentum for Agari. In the past year Agari’s client base has Financial Services, E-Commerce, Healthcare doubled and revenue has tripled. Client wins include the largest companies in, Logistics and B2B Services.

“We’re thrilled to announce this growth round with ScaleVP as their investment validates our unique approach to finally eliminating email as a channel for cyber-attacks, and will fuel scaling sales, marketing and continued product innovation for Agari’s big data analytics engine and attack detection solutions,” said Patrick Peterson, Agari’s founder and CEO, and a pioneer in email security. “Email remains a remarkably powerful and open communication tool, but this strength also makes it the weakest link in the security chain. We’re leveraging our massive dataset of over 1 trillion messages analysed to power solutions that take email out of the cybercrime equation to eliminate abuse, preserve brand equity, and keep consumers safe.”

Recent headlines detailing widespread breaches reveal just how vulnerable even the largest brands are to cyber-attacks. The most recent Email Trust Index, compiled from Agari’s analysis of 6.5 billion emails per day across 11 industries, reveals that threats in the travel sector increased by 800% in Q2 and that over 90% of healthcare companies are ranked “easy targets” for cybercriminals through email. This level of threat is prompting the C-Suite to take action. ScaleVP’s recent security research reveals one third of CISOs list data breaches and malware outbreaks as a top concern for their business, both issues that involve email as the attack vector.

“We continue to see cybercrime as a serious business threat, evidenced by the on-going recurrences of data breaches of public companies, our own security research, and discussions by the boards of our portfolio companies. Companies must take aggressive action to protect their brands and their customers’ personal and financial data. Agari is the clear leader in delivering security solutions that eliminate email as a vector for cyber-attacks and enable businesses and consumers to interact safely,” said Ariel Tseitlin, Partner, Scale Venture Partners. “I am excited to be joining Agari’s board to help them execute on this critical mission.”

“Agari is a classic example of the ideal companies in which we like to invest: those that solve real customer problems with cutting-edge technology and aren’t simply seeking to ride the latest hot trend,” said Ammar Hanafi, general partner at Alloy Ventures. “The disruptive technology Agari has developed, that we at Alloy first backed in 2010, is creating tremendous value for customers and partners, and solving problems you just couldn’t in any other way.”

By creating a level of unparalleled visibility and control for managing email data in the cloud, Agari is building a connected community of Fortune 1000 clients, mail providers and technology partners. Agari has been recognised for its innovative solutions by being inducted in 2013 to the JPMorgan Chase Hall of Innovation and also by being recognised as a Gartner “Cool Vendor” in Security. As a founding member of DMARC.org and contributing author of the open standard DMARC that underlies Agari’s solutions, Agari helps companies gain unprecedented visibility into the legitimate and fraudulent use of their domains and email channel, enabling them to protect their customers, employees, and brands from email-based cybercrime.