Vaultree raises $3.3m for new datasecurity solution

Vaultree, a newly-founded Cork-based cybersecurity company, has secured $3.3 million (€2.85m) in investment.

The funding round for the encryption-as-a-service provider was led by Ten Eleven Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based VC, led by Alex Doll, who previously co-founded PGP. Other investors include Enterprise Ireland, US VC, Unpopular Ventures, HBAN and John Stewart, a former chief security and trust officer at Cisco.

Vaultree has been co-founded by a number of software engineers who together have developed end-to-end encryption technology that uses enhanced searchable symmetric encryption (ESSE) and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) to make it possible to work with fully encrypted cloud-based data without the need for organisations to decrypt the information or surrender security keys.

The company, which was founded last year, has just emerged from stealth mode, and has a number of businesses secured as clients already.

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Speaking to The Irish Times, co-founder Ryan Lasmaili said Vaultree enabled companies to maintain complete control of their data in an "always encrypted" environment. He said that no one is currently offering a solution that is as effective as the company's offering.

“We have achieved a major patent-pending technological breakthrough which enables us to differentiate our solution in the competitive space with a solution approach that finally frees companies from making trade-offs between security and performance,” he said.

“We take a full zero trust approach to the extreme that we even assume that the cloud is an adversary, Mr Lasmaili added.

Vaultree employs around 17 people currently, and intends to bolster headcount in the coming months.

Seed funding

Mr Lasmaili said the seed funding round was heavily oversubscribed, with the company looking to raise a “significant” Series A round in the near future as it looks to scale.

Vaultree has a number of heavyweight backers on board as advisers, including Rik Ferguson, an adviser to Europol's Cybercrime Centre, Leticia Gamil, the security channels leader at Cisco, David Currie, chief information security officer at Nubank, and Sarah Armstrong-Smith, chief security adviser at Microsoft.

“Data security threats continue to grow on a global scale as our online footprint increases and connected devices proliferate. To reduce cyberattacks and data breaches requires a fully encrypted and scalable solution, suitable for any sized business. Vaultree has developed an innovative solution to help meet these needs and work toward creating a safer digital world through data encryption,” said Ms Armstrong-Smith.