Madrid-based app security threat modeling tech startup IriusRisk secures $6.7 in million Series A funding

There is an increasing need amongst Application Security teams to ‘shift left’ – move security to the earliest possible point in the software development lifecycle – so that security design flaws and their associated costs are reduced. Given that an estimated 50% of software security vulnerabilities are flaws in the design, addressing the problem at this stage is the most cost-effective way of building security into software.

Enter IriusRisk, a Madrid, Spain-based threat modeling platform that helps developers, software architects, and security engineers to design secure software from the start of the development process and manage security all the way through to the testing phases.

Today, IriusRisk announced it has closed $6.7 million Series A funding to continue to innovate through its product roadmap and focus on global growth by expanding its sales and marketing teams in the US, UK, and Europe. The round was led by Global cyber investor Paladin Capital Group, with participation from 360 Capital Partners and existing investors Swanlaab, JME Ventures, and Sonae Investment Management. In conjunction with the funding, IriusRisk also announced that Conor O’Sullivan, Vice President at Paladin, who will join its Board of Directors.

Founded in 2015 by Cristina Bentue and Stephen de Vries, IriusRisk is the threat modeling platform for Application Security. Its platform integrates with the normal development workflow so that security is truly built-in and not bolted on.

IriusRisk is used by Fortune 500 banks, credit cards, and payment providers as well as technology companies. From software inception, through to design, and all the way into production, IriusRisk empowers security and development teams to ensure their applications have security built-in right from the start, without slowing the business down, helping them accelerate their digital transformation and improve their time-to-market by reducing unexpected security flaws and consequent project delays.

“We are excited to continue our growth with the backing of leading venture capital firms such as Paladin, 360 Capital, and our existing investors”, said Stephen de Vries and Cristina Bentue, Co-Founders of IriusRisk. “Their support allows IriusRisk to expand while providing our clients, such as Redhat and Axway, with solutions that accelerate their adoption of automated threat modeling tools. We have grown our customer base to more than 40 enterprise clients across the US, Europe, and the UK, including some of the world’s largest Fortune 500 financial, industrial, and consumer groups, and we will continue to expand within these and other verticals as a result of this funding.”

Commenting on the funding, Conor O’Sullivan, Vice President at Paladin, said: “Secure design in Application Security has been a manual, time consuming, inefficient and specialized process for many years. We’re pleased to partner with IriusRisk in its mission to provide automated solutions to the increasing vulnerabilities and threats at the design stage of applications. The IriusRisk team has the domain expertise and product vision that will enable the practice of threat modeling to scale to the thousands of applications that an enterprise maintains every year.”