Vicarius raises $5 million to accelerate international growth and operating scale
Vicarius, the predictive cyberthreat provider, announced seed funding of $5 million. The funding round was led by Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), with innogy Innovation Hub and Goldbell also investing.
The funding will accelerate the company’s international growth and operating scale, it will also build out Vicarius’ Tel Aviv and East Coast US offices, and its product offering, making it available to more clients across multiple industries.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates that 90 percent of security incidents reported are caused by exploiting defects in the code or design of software. In 2019 alone over 17,000 software vulnerabilities were discovered, amounting to a nearly 300% increase from a decade ago.
Founded in 2016, by seasoned cyber experts Michael Assraf, Roi Cohen and Yossi Ze’evi, Vicarius is the first cybersecurity platform globally to empower companies with proactive attack mitigation strategies for software vulnerabilities in real-time.
Using Machine Learning, Vicarius’ proprietary Vulnerability Assessment (VA) technology detects exposures in software before hacks occur, and offers customers built-in, immediate solutions and prioritization tools in a functional ‘risk-snapshot’ dashboard to securely reinforce threat zones.
“Despite the increasingly sophisticated nature of cyberthreats and software weaponization, little has changed in over a decade in the management and ‘patching’ or upgrading systems against cyberthreats,” said Michael Assraf, CEO & Co-Founder at Vicarius.
“Unlike current approaches that reactively map out potential threats based on pre-existing vulnerability data, Vicarius’ algorithm maps predicts vulnerabilities and potential zero-days based on live attack scenarios, offering an elimination pathway suitable for the zero-day malware era.”
Vicarius’ TOPIA technology patches vulnerabilities and also offers interim threat protection for target areas that have not yet directly been addressed, saving customers from the operational risks of reboots and the time it takes to patch latent security gaps.
This pre-emptive approach is ideal for organizations with poor cyber hygiene as it ensures a clean and well-maintained network environment that is far less attractive for hackers to exploit.
Gadi Porat, Partner, Head of JVP Cyber Labs who joins the board with this round commented: “Vicarius’ platform, based on Machine Learning and Dynamic Binary Instrumentation, provides a defence from yet-to-be-discovered software vulnerabilities through a multi-step solution: discovering security loopholes, prioritizing threats and protecting systems.
This new approach safeguards any software without involving the vendor or IT teams. After a decade of limited technological breakthrough in this field, Vicarius offers a pioneering solution to identify, manage and predict software vulnerabilities in a fast, efficient and cost-effective way and we’re delighted to be investing.”
“We are pleased to announce our investment in Vicarius. We are impressed by the team and the sophistication of their technology for Vulnerability Assessment and Management.”
Christof Kortz, Head of Strategic Cyber Security Venturing at innogy Innovation Hub, commented: “This technology has the potential to safeguard the integrity of many industries, and it’s of growing strategic importance for the energy sector.
“As systems become increasingly software-enabled, complex and IoT connected and as decentralised energy paradigms gain popularity, security defence systems such as Vicarius that can scale across diverse and expanding infrastructures and networks represent the next generation of cybersecurity.”
Vicarius’ US team will be based out of the recently launched the JVP International NYC Cyber Center,which will play a vital role not only in protecting cities, banks, utilities, and healthcare systems, but also democracies, the integrity of information, and the freedom of the individual.