- CultureAI has raised $10 million (£7.7 million) in capital
- Mercia Ventures and Smedvig Ventures led the funding round
- This funding will power CultureAI’s product development and market expansion plans
London, UK. 17 July 2024: Leading Human Risk Management Platform, CultureAI, today announced it has closed a $10 million (£7.7 million) Series A funding round. The funding was jointly led by Mercia Ventures and Smedvig Ventures, with existing investors Passion Capital and Senovo also continuing their support.
Despite many companies investing heavily in awareness and training programmes over the years, Forrester predicts that 90% of data breaches in 2024 will involve human error as infrequent security training doesn’t change employee behaviour. CultureAI takes a data-driven approach to enable organisations to monitor, reduce, and fix human cyber risk with an innovative Human Risk Management Platform that empowers organisations to identify workforce security risks, coach employees in the moment, and automate fixes.
Following seed rounds of $4 million in 2021 and $5 million in 2023, CultureAI has seen rapid adoption of its human risk management offering with significant growth in revenue and clients, including Revolut, RAC, Wickes, Delivery Hero, ClearBank, and Marie Curie. This latest investment will support CultureAI’s continued mission to evolve the way organisations detect and manage cyber risks in a developing landscape, which is fuelled by the widespread adoption of SaaS apps, collaboration tools, and generative AI.
CultureAI is dedicated to building a world where human error no longer results in security breaches. To realise this vision, the company will significantly invest in the evolution of its product and expand its team across all departments, aiming to double headcount over the next 12 months. Additionally, it plans to increase its market profile and presence in the US.
“Imagine having a team of thousands who deeply understand your business and its employees. If this team could review, understand, and fix risks generated by each employee at source, breaches could be reduced by around 80%. While it’s impractical to build such a team, we can emulate its effectiveness using intelligent technology.”
“Addressing human risk is crucial for cyber security. Every day, 1 in 4 employees create cyber risks as they go about their jobs, from reusing passwords across shadow SaaS apps to oversharing intellectual property with AI tools. We’re all human and make mistakes. However just doing more security awareness training won’t solve this—we can’t out-train human error. That’s why we’re focused on creating a platform which detects and automatically fixes the full spectrum of workforce cyber risks through interventions and nudges.”
Adam Lovell, Investor at Mercia Ventures comments: “CultureAI is at the forefront of developments in the emerging field of human risk management. With a deep understanding of the challenges that companies face, James and his team have developed a holistic solution that can secure businesses against a wide range of cyber threats. We believe the company is poised to achieve break-out growth. The funding will help it to further target a global audience and establish itself as a market leader.”
Joe Knowles, Partner at Smedvig Ventures adds: “It is widely accepted that human error is the most prevalent vector for cyber-attacks and is poorly protected against by ineffective training programmes. Advanced analytics applied to real-time behavioural data presents an original approach for CISOs to control human cyber risk. CultureAI is pioneering this with its market-leading software, offering immediate visibility and mitigation of vulnerabilities. James has an incredible reputation as a thought leader in the space and we are excited to partner with him and his team alongside Mercia Ventures.”
Aaron Paddison, Associate Director – Cyber Security at Peninsula Group discusses the value CultureAI brings to their organisation: “We recognised blanket training was having very little real impact when it came to improving employee security behaviours and we wanted a more targeted solution. CultureAI has been a game-changer for us in terms of understanding what our people are doing. Rather than relying on training modules, which people immediately forget, we can intervene as and when a risk is occurring.”
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About CultureAI
The innovative CultureAI Human Risk Management Platform empowers security teams to instantly identify workforce cyber security risks, coach employees in the moment, and automate fixes.
CultureAI recognises that we’re all human and everyone is capable of making a mistake. So is dedicated to building a world where human error no longer results in security breaches. The CultureAI platform enables organisations to measure real-time employee behaviours and reduce and fix human cyber risks wherever employees are working, from email to instant messenger to SaaS apps.
Trusted by leading organisations globally, CultureAI is headquartered in the UK with offices in Manchester and London. Learn more at www.culture.ai. Follow us on LinkedIn.
About Mercia Ventures
Mercia Ventures is a proactive venture capital investor focused on being the first-choice partner for growth. Mercia Ventures makes equity investments of up to £10million across all sectors, with specialisms in Software, Consumer, Healthcare and Deep Tech.
Mercia Ventures is a trading name of investment funds managed by Mercia Fund Management Limited and Mercia Regional Ventures Limited, part of the Mercia Asset Management PLC Group, and sits alongside the Group’s wider private equity, debt and proprietary balance sheet operations. The Group has 11 offices in the UK, and Mercia Ventures’ national footprint and 48 strong investment team draws on their experiences as founders, PhD scientists, software engineers, corporate financiers and management consultants to help our partner companies successfully achieve their ambitions. As at 30 September 2023, Mercia Asset Management PLC has c.£1.5billion of assets under management. Mercia Asset Management PLC is quoted on AIM with the epic “MERC”.
About Smedvig Ventures
Smedvig Ventures helps B2B tech teams scale more confidently. We invest between €4-8m in rounds of up to €20m across Europe. We support our select portfolio of ambitious teams from early traction to inspiring success stories focusing on taking founder led businesses to strong leadership teams and from product market fit to go-to market fit onwards. We’ve made this journey countless times over more than two decades and provide focused input that creates the biggest impact. The Smedvig family have been passionate about innovation for over 100 years. Put simply, having their complete backing means we can give you ours.
