PALO ALTO — LightBeam.ai, a security platform that provides zero-trust data protection, has raised $17.8 million in an oversubscribed Series A round funding. The new infusion of capital will enable LightBeam to expand its go-to-market initiatives across sales, marketing, channel, and alliances, and to continue investing in its vision of converging data security, privacy, and AI governance into a single platform. The round is led by Vertex Ventures US, and supported by Dropbox Ventures along with existing investors 8VC and Village Global, alongside several angel investors.
This investment comes on the heels of strong business momentum according to LightBeam.ai, reporting nearly 300% annual customer base growth led by banking, financial services, insurance, healthcare, tech, and retail sectors.
“In the era of Generative AI breakthroughs, organizations are empowered to unlock valuable insights from customer data. However, this advancement poses the crucial challenge of ensuring secure and compliant handling of customer data within the evolving landscape of AI governance and privacy regulations,” said Himanshu Shukla, co-founder and CEO of LightBeam. “At LightBeam, we address these challenges head-on with our revolutionary Zero Trust sensitive data protection platform. What sets us apart is our capability to automate security and compliance workflows seamlessly, providing a frictionless experience for sensitive data governance. We are committed to providing organizations with the tools they need to navigate these challenges effortlessly, empowering them to responsibly harness the power of Generative AI.”
Today’s data economy necessitates employees have access to a wide variety of company and users’ data to improve their decision making, creating massive data exposure challenges. Similarly, modern AI solutions often use company and user data to train themselves, further exacerbating privacy and data security concerns. A zero trust approach to data encapsulates a unified and consistent approach to data inventory, classification, and access – helping organizations maintain complete provenance of their data.
“LightBeam automates data-privacy and data-security workflows unified by a core engine that accurately and completely scans, identifies, and classifies files, documents and databases,” said Sandeep Bhadra, General Partner, Vertex Ventures US. “This team has drawn on their experience working together at Nutanix and combined it with the latest innovations in deep-learning to deliver an industry-leading product.”
Customers across multiple industry sectors are already benefiting from LightBeam’s unique approach to data protection and governance, and are excited about what this investment will mean for the growth of the company, and the expansion and further enhancement of LightBeam’s solutions.
“At ESL Federal Credit Union, we are proud to be trustees of our members’ data,” said Matt Davis, CISSP, VP and Chief Information Security Officer at ESL Federal Credit Union. “LightBeam’s unique technology enables us to ensure that sensitive data is identified and cataloged wherever it is, and helps us put the necessary controls in place across cloud, on-prem, and SaaS applications. We are delighted with the ease of use and accuracy of the solution.”
