Data security specialist Vera has secured a USD15 million investment led by Hasso Plattner Ventures (HP-Ventures), the venture capital firm founded by SAP co-founder and chairman, Hasso Plattner.
HP-Ventures is joined by existing investors Battery Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, Clear Venture Partners, Amplify Partners, Capital One Ventures and Leslie Ventures who all participated in this strategic financing.
This latest investment brings Vera's total capital raised to over USD50 million.
Vera has also appointed Clear Venture Partners' co-founder and general partner Chris Rust to its board of directors.
"Hasso Plattner Ventures has a highly curated, global portfolio of game-changing companies, but our investment in Vera is unique in that it marks our fund's first cybersecurity investment," says Yair Re'em, general partner of Hasso Plattner Ventures. "The crumbling state of enterprise security has clearly demonstrated the need for a fundamental paradigm shift in cybersecurity. Severe breaches are reported on a daily basis, causing businesses massive loss of revenue and trust. Vera's incredible momentum and hyper-growth in markets large and small is testament to the brilliance and power of Vera's innovative approach to securing information of all types and is the only solution that can help protect and control data after a breach has happened."
Vera's data-centric security solution accelerates enterprises' ability to comply with a complex web of state, federal, and international regulations, including the EU's impending General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Gartner predicts that by the end of 2018, over 50 per cent of companies affected by the GDPR will not be in full compliance with its requirements. Vera enables these organisations to fully automate data security, encryption, control, and compliance with these regulations.
Vera provides the 360-degree audit trail and chain of custody necessary for global risk and compliance officers to precisely control what users can and cannot do with enterprise data while simultaneously preserving their privacy, across all applications, devices, and platforms.
"Hasso Plattner is an undisputed and unmatched titan in the software world, and we're beyond humbled and honoured that his venture arm would pre-emptively and proactively choose to invest in Vera at a time when we are already flush with capital. HP-Venture's global reach will undoubtedly help us accelerate our expansion into multi-national and European markets," says Ajay Arora, CEO and co-founder of Vera.
"The way businesses and individuals protect critical data has to change dramatically. Vera is unmatched in meeting this widespread pressing need," says Rust. "Their field proven product is a great leap forward versus other approaches, and is safeguarding tens of millions of files every day. Vera's extreme ease of use and scalability is validated by a rapidly growing global customer base that includes some of the world's most valuable and respected enterprises. The enterprise network perimeter has collapsed and those clinging to solutions trying to save or resurrect it are fighting a battle long since lost. Vera is the driving force behind a positive and profound shift away from perimeter-based security and towards a more flexible and reliable data-centric model. Clear Ventures is delighted to be a founding investor in Vera. This strong financing will provide additional resources for the fine Vera team to continue to delight their customers."
