Aware Raises $12m Series B To Provide Controls, Governance And Insights Into Workplace Collaboration And Communication Tools

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Dec. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Aware, the only comprehensive AI solution for governance, risk, compliance (GRC) and insights for leading digital collaboration technologies, today announced a $12 million Series B equity investment led by New York-based Spring Mountain Capital with participation from Blue Heron Capital and Allos Ventures.

Aware offers a unified view across many of the tools now considered vital to remote work, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams and Workplace from Facebook. Aware's platform provides AI-enhanced controls and governance capabilities for the nuanced conversation data set that lives within these communication tools. Additionally, Aware continuously enriches the conversation data that flow through the tools with proprietary natural language processing (NLP) and AI models, providing organizational value and insights such as ongoing employee sentiment and commonly discussed themes.

Jeff Schumann, CEO and Co-Founder of Aware said: "We're excited to partner with investors who truly understand the opportunity that lives within this unique space. The conversation data found in technologies like Slack and Teams is different than anything IT teams have faced before – they include comments, replies, emojis, @ mentions, images, attachments and so much more. Legacy systems just aren't set up to properly handle this unstructured data set. With the use of these tools only increasing due to an influx in remote work, we see an opportunity to not only provide the necessary controls specific to this data set, but also leverage our proprietary AI to derive a wealth of knowledge and insights that leaders will find invaluable as they embrace a new way of working."

The investment will accelerate the company's go-to-market efforts, increase partnerships, grow Aware's integration ecosystem and support ongoing product research and development.

Jamie Weston, Managing Director of Spring Mountain Capital said:

"Aware is uniquely positioned to tackle today's remote-work-first world with the team's extensive background in understanding digital conversations. They solve an immediate risk and compliance need that many companies didn't realize they had until the pandemic hit. Meanwhile, Aware continues to push the envelope by using this data set and technology to add immense value back to the organization. We're thrilled to partner with Jeff and team on this next stage of the company."

Aware was founded in 2017 and quickly penetrated the enterprise market by securing high-profile customers across the globe including Wipro, AstraZeneca, Sun Life Financial, Farmers Insurance, Memorial Health System and British Telecom. Common GRC use cases for Aware include archiving, eDiscovery, monitoring/DLP, data management and preservation, bi-directional retention and regulatory compliance controls.

Financing also includes participation from by existing investors Draper Triangle Ventures, Ohio Innovation Fund, JumpStart, Rev1 Ventures and JobsOhio.

About Aware

Aware delivers AI-infused governance, compliance and monitoring for enterprise organizations deploying today's leading collaboration and messaging platforms, including Slack, Microsoft Teams, Yammer and Workplace from Facebook. Aware's comprehensive platform solves common challenges that legal, compliance, information security and IT departments face when rolling out collaboration, including archiving, monitoring, organization insights, DLP, eDiscovery, retention and legal holds. Aware is a Microsoft Gold Partner, Slack compliance partner and a Workplace by Facebook integration partner. Leading research analyst firm Gartner announced Aware as a Gartner Cool Vendor based on the September 11, 2018 report titled, "Cool Vendors in Unified Communications and Collaboration Technologies."

The company is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio — a city recognized by Forbes as the #1 rising city for startups.

For more information visit www.aware.com, follow on Twitter @Aware_HQ and on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/company/awareHQ.

About Spring Mountain Capital

Spring Mountain Capital is a New York-based private investment management firm that focuses on alternative asset investing. The SMC Growth equity team focuses on providing expansion capital to companies capitalizing on breakthrough innovations, paradigm shifts, or fundamental market or behavioral changes. SMC invests in two sectors of the U.S. economy undergoing the most change and with the highest growth potential: technology-enabled and healthcare businesses. For more information, visit: smcgrowthcapital.com.

SOURCE Aware

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