Stack Identity emerges from stealth with $4M in funding to solve ‘shadow access’ problem and prevent cloud data breaches

Cloud data breaches are on the rise. According to the 2023 Thales Data Threat Report, 48% of IT professionals reported an increase in ransomware attacks while 22% of organizations have fallen victim to such an attack in the last year. The report also identified human error as the main cause.

In addition, Cloud data breaches could also be caused by ‘shadow access’ in the cloud environment, a situation where cloud identities, apps, and data create unauthorized, unmonitored, and invisible access to the cloud data. Unfortunately, existing cybersecurity tools are blind to many cloud identities and access pathways, creating vulnerabilities that are exploited to breach cloud data. It’s for this reason that one tech startup has created a solution to address the ‘shadow access’ problem and prevent cloud data breaches.

Enter Stack Identity, a Silicon Valley-based cybersecurity startup that solves the ‘shadow access’ Problem with automated Identity and Access Management (IAM) operations. By enabling cloud security teams to swiftly prioritize and automate remediation efforts, Stack Identity empowers them to take a proactive approach to cloud security.

Founded by CEO Venkat Raghavan, Ambrish Deshpande, and Sanjay Kale, Stack Identity offers a solution that revolutionizes cloud IAM operations by proactively detecting, eliminating, and managing shadow access, which may otherwise remain unauthorized, unmonitored, and invisible. Raghavan is a cybersecurity industry veteran with decades of industry experience across Symantec, McAfee, IBM, Netskope, and BlueCoat

Today, Stack Identity announced it has emerged from stealth mode with $4 million in a seed funding round co-led by WestWave Capital and Benhamou Global Ventures, with participation from Plug and Play and notable cybersecurity investors.

Stack Identity will use the fresh capital infusion to scale product development, strengthen go-to-market strategies and expand customer reach, including SMBs, mid-market, and enterprises. Stack Identity will also use the funding to further invest in solving the challenge of automating cloud security as enterprises accelerate the development of data-centric and AI-powered applications.

In the rapidly evolving realm of cloud-based identity and access management (IAM), businesses are unable to protect sensitive data if they don’t know who has access, why, and for how long. Stack Identity was created to solve this problem, making it easier for customers to protect critical and sensitive data stored in the cloud by eliminating applications and services from rogue access and preventing unauthorized data sharing and data exfiltration.

Protecting sensitive data in a complex data-sharing environment is only possible by addressing the access layer and specifically what Stack Identity defines as ‘shadow access’. Its platform leverages its patent-pending algorithm, the Breach Prediction Index (BPI), and integrates deep data and application context to identify the 2% of toxic access combinations that could potentially impact up to 90% of data assets.

“The security landscape has profoundly changed—and the market demand for identity and access management to evolve was an inspiration for creating something unique and different from status quo IAM solutions,” said Venkat Raghavan, CEO and founder of Stack Identity. “It’s our vision and conviction that the future of cloud security must be identity-first, access-centric and with a deep context of data, applications, and software. The support of our investors brings this vision to reality.”

Stack Identity was created to address the problem of shadow access—unauthorized, unmonitored, and invisible cloud data access patterns created by the myriad of human and machine cloud identities accessing the cloud. Businesses of all sizes can now benefit from Stack Identity’s automated breach detection leveraging advanced heuristics that continuously detects and removes bad actors from cloud environments.

“Without visibility, risky behavior cannot be effectively identified, prioritized, and remediated. Despite security measures put in place by security teams, lack of visibility causes blindspots and shadow access for attackers to wreak havoc on organizations,” Stack Identity said in a statement.

“We are very proud to co-lead the investment in Stack Identity,” said Gaurav Manglik, General Partner at Westwave Capital. “Venkat and the team are tackling an untenable security problem created by the proliferation of thousands of automated and human identities in the cloud, with an identity-first data security approach. We believe in the team’s expertise in security, and Stack Identity’s deep technology to differentiate in a crowded IAM market.”

“Stack Identity represents the winning formula we look for in our deal evaluation frameworks, namely, the combination of technology and team,” said Yashwanth Hemaraj, Partner at Benhamou Global Ventures. “As we accelerate into an Enterprise 4.0 world, Stack Identity is primed to emerge as a future market leader in the IAM space as enterprises accelerate digital transformation initiatives and the sanctity and security of data continue to increase in importance and value.”