$7.6 Million Series A Funding Round for Cigent

Cigent Technology, Inc. announced the close of a $7.6 million series A funding with In-Q-Tel, Inc., CyberJunction PTY Ltd, WestWave Capital, and several prominent individual investors participating.

The funding enables Cigent to commercialize and bring to market its Data Defense. This breakthrough approach protects companies and individuals from ransomware, data theft, and malicious insider attacks, ending 30 years of failure by the cybersecurity industry. Cigent Data Defense leverages software and hardware products to prevent network, endpoint, and cloud-based data infiltration even after a network has been breached.

Cigent Data Defense combines Cigent’s Dynamic Data Defense Engine (D3E) software with its Secure SSDs and takes a different approach to protect vs. data theft and ransomware than previous cybersecurity technology.

Cigent Secure SSDs

D3E for Windows is the first data defense software to rely on file-level Zero-Trust access controls to protect sensitive files vs. any threat. D3E relies on multi-factor authentication and encryption to secure sensitive files anywhere they are shared or stored, even after a security breach. It can be used as a standalone software solution or in tandem with Cigent Secure SSDs. Cigent Data Defense is designed for use by individuals, small-to-medium-size businesses, corporate enterprises and government entities.

“In-Q-Tel scouts the global market for cutting-edge technologies that have the potential for high national security impact, and we’re excited to be an investor in Cigent, which has built technology to protect vs. ransomware, data theft and malicious insider theft,” offered Bentz Tozer, senior member, technical staff, In-Q-Tel. 

Several individual investors have participated in the funding:
• Avie Tevanian, formerly Apple Inc.’s chief software technology officer
• Tom Paquin, co-founder of Netscape and Mozilla
• Brendan O’Halloran, former vice-chair at TD Securities
• William Cyr, CEO at NASDAQ-listed Freshpet
• Alan Pollard, president – product and innovation at The Vitality Group
• Francois Millard, SVP/chief actuarial officer at The Vitality Group
• Dr. Tony Martin, president and founder of Strategic Solutions Unlimited
• Gary Wipfler, treasurer, Apple Inc.

CyberJunction’s Thomas DiBenedetto, and Brendan O’Halloran have also joined the Cigent board of directors. DiBenedetto, who leads CyberJunction, is also chairman of Jefferson Waterman International, a Washington D.C.-based international consulting firm and a partner in the Fenway Sports Group LLC (FSG), the parent company of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club.

A unique fusion of data recovery, cyberthreat, and storage experts originally architected Cigent Data Defense to protect sensitive data inside select US government agencies.  Founders handled sensitive work on behalf of US government agencies on advanced data destruction and recovery projects. They retrieved data from severely damaged and encrypted media critical to assisting national security and highly publicized law enforcement actions. In the wake of the Edward Snowden insider theft of classified information, which easily bypassed software-only security layers, the U.S government-funded Cigent team explored the concept of self-defending storage to combat data theft from any vector. The multi-year R&D effort resulted in the first storage devices with active and embedded ML-based ransomware detection and advanced proprietary firmware-based cybersecurity protections. This approach to data security proved so effective that Cigent received additional backing from public and private sources to patent its technology and develop commercially available products in the interest of national security. The result is the Cigent Data Defense family of products just introduced.

“We’ve received support well beyond capital from our investment group,”said Bradley Rowe, CEO, Cigent. “Several of our investors are directly responsible for commercial engagements the Company now has in place. In addition to the publicly disclosed investment, the company enjoys significant sources of non-dilutive capital from governmental partners.“