CultureAI raises $10 million in Series A funding to evolve the way organisations manage human risk
17 July 2024 - 7:00PM
UK Regulatory
CultureAI raises $10 million in Series A funding to evolve the way
organisations manage human risk
- CultureAI has raised $10 million in
capital
- Mercia Ventures and Smedvig Ventures led
the funding round
- This funding will power CultureAI’s
product development and market expansion plans
London, UK. 17
July 2024: Leading Human Risk Management
Platform, CultureAI, today announced it has closed a $10 million
Series A funding round. The funding was jointly led by Mercia
Ventures and Smedvig Ventures, with existing investors Passion
Capital and Senovo also continuing their
support.
Despite many companies investing heavily in awareness and
training programmes over the years, Forrester predicts that 90% of
data breaches in 2024 will involve human error as infrequent
security training doesn't change employee behaviour. CultureAI
takes a data-driven approach to enable organisations to monitor,
reduce, and fix human cyber risk with an innovative Human Risk
Management Platform that empowers organisations to identify
workforce security risks, coach employees in the moment, and
automate fixes.
Following seed rounds of $4 million in 2021 and $5 million in
2023, CultureAI has seen rapid adoption of its human risk
management offering with significant growth in revenue and clients,
including Revolut, RAC, Wickes, Delivery Hero, ClearBank, and Marie
Curie. This latest investment will support CultureAI’s continued
mission to evolve the way organisations detect and manage cyber
risks in a developing landscape, which is fuelled by the widespread
adoption of SaaS apps, collaboration tools, and generative
AI.
CultureAI is dedicated to building a world where human error no
longer results in security breaches. To realise this vision, the
company will significantly invest in the evolution of its product
and expand its team across all departments, aiming to double
headcount over the next 12 months. Additionally, it plans to
increase its market profile and presence in the
US.
James Moore, founder
and CEO of
CultureAI says:
“Imagine having a team of thousands who deeply
understand your business and its employees. If this team could
review, understand, and fix risks generated by each employee at
source, breaches could be reduced by around 80%. While it’s
impractical to build such a team, we can emulate its effectiveness
using intelligent technology.”
"Addressing human risk is crucial for cyber security. Every day,
1 in 4 employees create cyber risks as they go about their jobs,
from reusing passwords across shadow SaaS apps to oversharing
intellectual property with AI tools. We're all human and make
mistakes. However just doing more security awareness training won't
solve this—we can't out-train human error. That’s why we’re focused
on creating a platform which detects and automatically fixes the
full spectrum of workforce cyber risks through interventions and
nudges."
Adam Lovell, Investor at Mercia Ventures
comments: “CultureAI is at the forefront of developments
in the emerging field of human risk management. With a deep
understanding of the challenges that companies face, James and his
team have developed a holistic solution that can secure businesses
against a wide range of cyber threats. We believe the company is
poised to achieve break-out growth. The funding will help it to
further target a global audience and establish itself as a market
leader.”
Joe Knowles, Partner at Smedvig Ventures adds:
“It is widely accepted that human error is the most prevalent
vector for cyber-attacks and is poorly protected against by
ineffective training programmes. Advanced analytics applied to
real-time behavioural data presents an original approach for CISOs
to control human cyber risk. CultureAI is pioneering this with its
market-leading software, offering immediate visibility and
mitigation of vulnerabilities. James has an incredible reputation
as a thought leader in the space and we are excited to partner with
him and his team alongside Mercia Ventures.”
Aaron Paddison, Associate
Director - Cyber Security at Peninsula Group discusses the
value CultureAI brings to their organisation: "We recognised
blanket training was having very little real impact when it came to
improving employee security behaviours and we wanted a more
targeted solution. CultureAI has been a game-changer for us in
terms of understanding what our people are doing. Rather than
relying on training modules, which people immediately forget, we
can intervene as and when a risk is occurring.”
About
CultureAI
The innovative CultureAI Human Risk
Management Platform empowers security teams to instantly identify
workforce cyber security risks, coach employees in the moment, and
automate fixes.
CultureAI recognises that we’re all
human and everyone is capable of making a mistake. So is dedicated
to building a world where human error no longer results in security
breaches. The CultureAI platform enables organisations to measure
real-time employee behaviours and reduce and fix human cyber risks
wherever employees are working, from email to instant messenger to
SaaS apps.
Trusted by leading organisations
globally, CultureAI is headquartered in the UK with offices in
Manchester and London. Learn more at www.culture.ai. Follow us on
LinkedIn.
About Mercia
Ventures
Mercia Ventures is a proactive venture
capital investor focused on being the first-choice partner for
growth. Mercia Ventures makes equity investments of up to
£10million across all sectors, with specialisms in Software,
Consumer, Healthcare and Deep Tech.
Mercia Ventures is a trading name of
investment funds managed by Mercia Fund Management Limited and
Mercia Regional Ventures Limited, part of the Mercia Asset
Management PLC Group, and sits alongside the Group’s wider private
equity, debt and proprietary balance sheet operations. The Group
has 11 offices in the UK, and Mercia Ventures’ national footprint
and 48 strong investment team draws on their experiences as
founders, PhD scientists, software engineers, corporate financiers
and management consultants to help our partner companies
successfully achieve their ambitions. As at 30 September 2023,
Mercia Asset Management PLC has c.£1.5billion of assets under
management. Mercia Asset Management PLC is quoted on AIM with the
epic “MERC”.
About Smedvig
Ventures
Smedvig Ventures helps B2B tech teams
scale more confidently. We invest between €4-8m in rounds of up to
€20m across Europe. We support our select portfolio of ambitious
teams from early traction to inspiring success stories focusing on
taking founder led businesses to strong leadership teams and from
product market fit to go-to market fit onwards. We’ve made this
journey countless times over more than two decades and provide
focused input that creates the biggest impact. The Smedvig family
have been passionate about innovation for over 100 years. Put
simply, having their complete backing means we can give you
ours.
Press Contact
Destiny Gillbee
PR Director, C8 Consulting for CultureAI
cultureai@c8consulting.co.uk