Transatlantic venture capital investor, Beringea, has led a GBP6.5m investment in Exonar, a data discovery and management software firm.
Downing Ventures, the early stage investor, has also participated in the round alongside notable existing investors, Amadeus Capital Partners and Winton Ventures.
Enterprises are facing a fundamental change in the way they process and store information. An exponential increase in data volume means organisations must find new ways to understand the risk as well as the opportunities in their data. Driven by new regulation, cyber threats and competition, organisations who use data they hold effectively will survive and thrive.
Exonar discovers an organisation’s most sensitive, valuable and personal information. By simply plugging Exonar into a network, an instant view of all structured and unstructured data is provided, enabling the creation of inventories, security of sensitive data and regulatory compliance.
Recent research by EY found the UK’s largest firms spent over USD1.1 billion to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) before it came into force in May 2018, while the same research found that Fortune 500 companies had spent USD7.8 billion.
Data discovery technology is proving vital to businesses that can easily hold petabytes of data across their entire information estate. The significant growth of data value has led to industry analysts estimating that the global data governance software market will grow 22 per cent annually over the next five years to a value of USD3.5 billion by 2023. Exonar is well positioned to provide the technology needed to support this extensive growth.
Exonar was founded by Adrian Barrett, a visionary with substantial experience in data, analytics, and information security who has previously worked for Cisco and Lumeta, a global network data specialist. He is supported by an experienced management team with decades of leadership experience in global cyber security and technology companies such as BT, Fujitsu, Veritas, Symantec and EMC.
Adrian Barrett, CEO and Founder, says: “These are exciting times for Exonar. To receive significant backing from Beringea and Downing Ventures reinforces our belief that the Exonar platform has a significant role to play in enterprise-level data discovery and management. We have a clear vision for future development and the investment will enable us to further enhance our product, enabling our customers to meet current and future data demands such as GDPR and CCPA swiftly, simply and at scale.”
“Data is the backbone of modern business. And yet, it also poses an existential risk, which has traditionally required substantial resources and investment to manage. Exonar transforms this dynamic with a platform that maps and understands petabytes of information in seconds.”
Stuart Veale, Managing Partner of Beringea, says: “Beringea has backed Exonar’s leadership and pioneering technology to create a cornerstone of data governance.”
James Lewis, Investment Director at Downing Ventures, adds: “Not a day goes by that we don’t hear about the importance of accessing and making better use of data in all our businesses – Exonar is at the forefront of shaping and solving this challenge and we’re delighted to be part of the journey with Adrian and the team.”