Flare Secures $30 Million Series B Funding to Expand Threat Exposure Management Solutions in North America and Europe
Flare, a Montreal-based cybersecurity company, has successfully raised $30 million USD ($42.5 million CAD) in Series B funding. This significant investment is aimed at scaling its threat exposure management (TEM) solutions in North America and Europe.
The funding round was led by Base10 Partners, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm known for investing in companies that automate sectors of the real economy. Other key investors included Inovia Capital, White Star Capital, and Fonds de solidarité FTQ, a Quebec-based investment fund.
Flare specializes in advanced cybersecurity solutions that help organizations identify and manage potential security threats. The company’s platform leverages cutting-edge data collection, threat intelligence, and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide actionable insights on cyber risks, including attacker-used credentials and target systems.
The new funding will primarily support Flare’s expansion in Europe and further growth in North America. The company plans to scale its market efforts in these regions while investing in product development through AI integration. Flare CEO Norman Menz emphasized that the financing will also help grow the team of 100 employees and improve the product’s capabilities.
Flare’s software sets it apart from competitors in the threat exposure management space due to its expansive dataset, which includes sources like darknet marketplaces, leak and dump websites, and private Telegram rooms. The company’s Threat Flow feature generates reports of potential threat activity on the dark web for security teams to monitor. This technology is based on research conducted by Flare in collaboration with the School of Criminology at the Université de Montréal and Complexity Science Hub using the OpenAI GPT-3.5 Turbo large-language model (LLM).
The startup was founded in 2017 by COO Yohan Trépanier Montpetit, CTO Mathieu Lavoie, and chief architect Israël Hallé, previously a developer at Shopify. In 2022, the company raised a $9.5-million CAD Series A to expand into the US. The new financing brings the company’s total raised to at least $53 million CAD.
Base10 Partners is a new addition to Flare’s investor list, and Menz noted that their values “resonated brilliantly” with Flare’s team culture. The company encountered Base10 late in the fundraising process, highlighting the strategic alignment between the two entities.
Flare’s focus on threat exposure management is particularly relevant in today’s cybersecurity landscape, where stealing login credentials has become a more common method of cybercrime than traditional break-ins. The company’s feature that detects leaked login information and proactively resets passwords before bad actors can use them is a critical tool in combating this threat.
With this significant investment, Flare is poised to strengthen its position in the cybersecurity market and continue to innovate in the field of threat exposure management. The company’s commitment to using AI to enhance its product and expand its global reach underscores its dedication to providing cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions to organizations worldwide.