Cyber security leader Kasada secures $6.5m from leading Australian venture capital firms
Kasada has announces a $6.5 million capital raising from the CSIRO-backed venture firm Main Sequence Ventures and the Westpac-backed Reinventure Group.
Kasada founder and CEO, Sam Crowther said the company will leverage the funds to accelerate its engineering, research & development, and go-to-market expansion.
“From a standing start a little over four years ago, Kasada is now trusted by ASX 100, Forbes Global 2000, and mid-sized enterprises in Australia, the US and the UK,” Mr Crowther says. “We have taken an idea for better security and now demonstrated its capability in boardrooms in New York and Chicago.”
Mike Zimmerman, a founder and general partner of Main Sequence Ventures CSIRO Innovation Fund, led the investment, and will join Kasada’s board of directors. Mr Zimmerman is an investor and entrepreneur with deep experience building technology companies, particularly growth enterprise SaaS.
“Main Sequence aims to partner with Australia’s most ambitious founders solving large, difficult problems, and the ever-increasing challenge of stopping sophisticated cyberattacks certain qualifies,” Mr Zimmerman says. “Most organisations don’t realise that the majority of their web traffic is non-human, controlled by sophisticated criminals impersonating humans to deceive, defraud and disable. Kasada’s Polyform platform is a world-leading solution to help humans fight back against bad bots.”
Danny Gilligan, Co-founder and Managing Director at Reinventure Group, continues his advisory role on the Kasada board. Reinventure is known for its ability to create high-functioning partnerships, between large corporates and innovative start-ups, and deep expertise in the emerging data economy.
“We continue to be impressed by the brilliance of the Kasada team, the reaction of sophisticated customers to their capability and the growing realisation of the importance of protecting data assets as the data economy matures, says Mr Gilligan. “While protection against cyber criminals is critically important, organisations are increasingly exposed to more banal threats from scraping attacks from competitors and other commercial actors and Kasada is the perfect solution.
“Kasada is also tapping into a rapidly growing market. By 2020 spending on enterprise
firewalls and cloud security is forecast to reach $17.2 billion annually. Kasada is part of
the exciting new wave of cybersecurity, thwarting attackers with economic disincentives
rather than technological barriers.”
Kasada Polyform detects and mitigates malicious web traffic that other security
measures are unable to identify. Kasada’s web security service protects websites and
web applications in real-time from user account takeovers, fraud, data-scraping and other
attacks that significantly disrupt user experience of websites. Kasada Polyform also
reduces bot-related network bandwidth and computing infrastructure costs, and improves
the effectiveness of digital marketing. The demand for better web security continues to
accelerate because of the increasing volume and sophistication of criminal activity.
“In today’s highly connected world, a secure digital experience is key to building and
retaining trust,” says Mr Crowther. “Smart businesses know cyber security, data
protection and customer experience are inextricably linked.
“As cyber criminals increasingly use automation to attack websites and web applications,
automation is therefore the key to keeping up where human analysts cannot. Kasada
provides protection against the dark web’s inventory of stolen user credentials and
automated fraud tools.
“Kasada Polyform secures millions of e-commerce and other internet transactions, every
day. It shifts the balance of power from the adversary to the enterprise by making attacks
computationally more expensive for attackers and thereby disrupting their business
model. Kasada improves business decision making, and the bottom-line costs of
computing infrastructure.”
AustCyber CEO Michelle Price says Australia has “ a thriving and dynamic, globally
competitive cyber security sector.”
“Kasada’s ability to complete a capital raise through Main Sequence and Reinventure
Group is not only a strong affirmation of the scalability and applicability of Kasada’s
capability offering, but further proof that Australian cyber security capability is world-class,
and the industry is growing and maturing,” Ms Price says. “This is a wonderful
achievement for Kasada, with an all-Australian investor round.”
About Kasada & Sam Crowther
Kasada is an innovative enterprise web security company operating globally, with offices
in Australia and the United States. Kasada has been leading the fight against bots since
2015, with novel approaches and cloud-based technology.
Its Kasada Polyform service detects and mitigates the maelstrom of malicious traffic that
other security platforms can’t. It protects websites and web applications from credential
stuffing, fraud, account takeover and scraping attacks. Kasada Polyform also reduces
network bandwidth and computing infrastructure costs caused by bots and helps ensure
digital marketing and web analytics are accurate. Kasada Polyform provides customers
with an immediate ROI through reduced infrastructure costs and enhanced marketing
feedback. More at kasada.io
Sam Crowther, Kasada’s founder and CEO, won SmartCompany’s 2018 Smart 30 under
30; and Anthill’s 2016 Top 30 Under30.
About Main Sequence
Main Sequence Ventures backs deep tech founders inventing tomorrow. Established to
manage the CSIRO Innovation Fund we are company builders and value creators with a
mission to transform inspiring Australian research into epic global companies.
About Reinventure
Reinventure exists at the third horizon of growth, focused on creating options in future
businesses through venture investment and a strategic relationship with the firm’s largest
limited partner, Westpac Banking Corporation. With $150 million to invest in FinTech and
adjacent areas, Reinventure is uncovering, investing in and nurturing scalable early
businesses that will be the future of the industry.
