With the help of our new VC partners, we’re scaling our cyber risk scorecards to better solve the growing challenge of third-party cyber risk assessment

Today, Black Kite is proud to announce our first-ever round of venture capital (VC) funding. By taking on experienced investors who will also serve as valued advisors to the company, Black Kite will be able to build out our world-class sales, marketing, customer service and product development teams. While we’ve enjoyed unprecedented organic growth since our founding, VC investment from lead investor Glasswing Ventures, and Data Point Capital at this key stage in our development will help us catapult our unique supply chain risk assessment and monitoring platform to better serve our global customers.

The growing third-party risk problem

Third-party risk has been a notoriously weak link in the enterprise security chain for decades. The more suppliers and partners an organization has, the greater the potential security risk. According to Deloitte, a typical Fortune 500 company works with more than 100,000 external third parties, such as vendors, suppliers, service providers, and outsourcers. This ecosystem of partners is essential for organizations to meet their business objectives and stay competitive. But too often, third-party relationships serve as an unlocked door through which bad actors gain access to systems and information.

One of the most pressing challenges for enterprise security and compliance teams is the complex process of third-party risk assessment. With so many varying partners, it can be overwhelming to know where to begin with third-party risk monitoring and evaluation. In response, many businesses do nothing and hope for the best. In the 2018 PWC Privacy and Trust Report, only 46% of those surveyed said they regularly conduct audits of third parties that handle their sensitive corporate data.

However, with the rise in global data privacy regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU,  the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA), and legislation pending in numerous other U.S. states, organizations are legally responsible for data loss, even when the breach occurred through a third-party partner. The stakes have never been higher for businesses to get a clear picture of third-party risk.

The Black Kite difference

That’s where Black Kite comes in. We deliver value to our enterprise customers almost instantly with our real-time, on-demand cyber risk scorecards. Our mission is to alleviate third-party risk concerns by quickly giving security and compliance teams the vital data they need to evaluate which partners and stakeholders present the greatest risk — and most importantly, actionable steps they can take to mitigate these risks. Black Kite enables companies to collaborate without fear with their suppliers and third-party partners. Currently, our technology has the capability to generate up to 150,000 scorecards per day to monitor and continuously optimize the cybersecurity posture of their shared ecosystem. With our VC funding, our goal is to be able to generate up to 1 million scorecards per week.

Welcoming our investors

Our unique approach to third-party risk assessment attracted the attention, and ultimately, the investment dollars from two well-respected venture capital (VC) firms: Glasswing Ventures and Data Point Capital. We’re proud to announce that these two esteemed VC firms have come together in a seed round of funding totaling $3.5 million.

Why did our VC partners choose Black Kite?

“Unlike competing solutions that have been in the market for years, Black Kite leverages advances in data science and Open Source Intelligence Techniques (OSINT) to provide higher frequency and precise real-time risk assessments, allowing organizations to have better visibility into the risks they face,” said Rick Grinnell, founder and managing partner of Glasswing Ventures of Boston, Mass. “These technology advances were one of the core drivers of Glasswing’s interest in the company.”

Mike Majors of Data Point Capital adds, “At Data Point Capital, we invest in companies that understand the key performance indicators to scale their businesses. Black Kite, with its real-time, data-driven vulnerability scorecards, is a strong representation of this principle.”

Read our press release to learn more about the investment from Glasswing and Data Point Capital. You can also read more from lead investor Rick Grinnell at his blog.