South African-founded leader in email security Sendmarc has raised $7-million in a “series A “funding round. The investment was led by Atlantica Ventures and supported by Allan Gray E-Squared Ventures, Fireball Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, 4Di Capital, Kalon Venture Partners, Endeavor Harvest, and Alpha Private Capital. Sendmarc says the funding will be used to expand its market enablement strategy and to continue improving its product, “with a focus on being the best in email and domain security – making the internet a safer place.”
CEO and founder Sam Hutchinson says that Sendmarc protected over 10-billion emails from impersonation last year.
“And with this new funding we can expand our market enablement strategy and also continue to improve the product, while remaining hyper-focused on being the best in this specific area of defence”.
Over 90% of cybercrime starts with an email impersonation, commonly known as phishing and spoofing. Sendmarc helps its customers solve this problem by locking down their email domains and monitoring for attempted abuse. Subscribers to Sendmarc.com have access to a suite of tools that implement, monitor and maintain global best practices for email and domain security.
Sendmarc actively enforces its email and domain security protection for thousands of companies worldwide, including stock exchanges, banks, insurance companies, tech companies, retailers, municipalities, law firms, and law enforcement agencies in South Africa, North America, Europe, Australia and Latin America.
“Cybercrime has become a major disruptor of economic activity both in Africa and worldwide which costs companies and governments billions of dollars annually in financial loss and reputational impact,” says Aniko Szigetvari, Atlantica principal and co-founder. “Atlantica Ventures is supporting African digital security startups and solutions that address this growing issue/pain point.
Sendmarc first raised seed capital in January 2020 when it first launched, from Kalon Venture Partners, a Johannesburg-based technology venture capital company. Kalon has subsequently invested follow-on capital in this round.
Clive Butkow, CEO of Kalon Venture Partners, said: “We invested in Sendmarc’s world class founding team as well as the large email phishing and spoofing problem the technology was solving.”
With the latest funding round and the backing of these top investors, Sendmarc says, it is set to make an even larger impact in the cybersecurity space.