Nudge Security welcomes Forgepoint Capital to seed round syndicate, bringing funding to $16.5 million

Forgepoint Capital joins Ballistic Ventures in backing leading provider of modern SaaS security and governance.

SAN FRANCISCO, May 7, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- RSA Conference - Nudge Security, the leading provider of modern SaaS security and governance, today announced new funding from Forgepoint Capital, which joins Ballistic Ventures in bringing the fast-growing startup's seed funding to $16.5 million. Forgepoint Co-Founder and Managing Director Alberto Yépez will join the Nudge Security board.

"With its patented, turnkey approach to SaaS discovery and observability, Nudge Security offers complete visibility and governance over every SaaS and cloud asset ever used organization-wide – a critical need especially with the explosive adoption of GenAI and increased digital supply chain risks," said Yépez. "We are thrilled to partner again with Co-Founders Russell Spitler and Jaime Blasco as they bring to market Nudge's intuitive, groundbreaking solution, following our remarkable journey together at AlienVault with then CEO Barmak Meftah and CTO Roger Thornton."

Since coming out of stealth, Nudge Security has experienced exponential growth, averaging 115% Q/Q revenue growth and acquiring more than 100 customers in just 18 months. Nudge Security has discovered over 38,000 unique SaaS applications in customer environments to date, highlighting the breadth of SaaS sprawl in most organizations. Customers include leading cloud-native organizations and forward-thinking IT and security teams from industries spanning financial services, healthcare, biotechnology, entertainment, and more.

"The enthusiasm from customers has been phenomenal. We are clearly addressing an acute source of pain for modern security teams in a way that is scalable and enables them to help drive the business forward rather than slowing things down with arcane IT governance processes."
- Russell Spitler, Co-Founder & CEO of Nudge Security

Nudge Security has shipped 43 feature releases in the last 12 months and plans to use the new investment to continue this rapid pace of product innovation and scale their go-to-market engine.

"Nudge's exceptional team and relentless innovation are propelling a groundbreaking approach to SaaS security and governance that actually empowers the modern workforce. We're delighted to welcome Forgepoint and look forward to their investment and expertise accelerating the company's existing momentum."
- Roger Thornton, Co-Founder and General Partner at Ballistic Ventures

Nudge Security brings AI risks out of the shadows

Shadow AI has emerged as a problematic issue for security teams as they strive to balance the need for business innovation with the need to mitigate risks. Illustrating the explosive nature of this problem, Nudge Security has discovered over 500 unique generative AI applications in customer environments to date, up from 300 in November of 2023 and 150 in July of 2023. Given this pace of adoption and the rapid introduction of new AI tools, IT and security teams can't possibly identify and mitigate AI risks without an automated, continuous method for discovering new AI tools as soon as they are introduced.

Nudge Security's patented method of SaaS discovery is perfectly suited for this challenge with the ability to discover virtually any new SaaS application as soon as it is introduced and without the need for any prior knowledge of the tool's existence. To date, Nudge Security has created security profiles for over 700 unique generative AI tools, putting relevant security information at the fingertips of IT and security teams so they can quickly vet newly introduced applications. Nudge Security can also automate "nudges" to end users to share acceptable use guidance or suggest already approved AI alternatives as soon as new AI accounts are detected.

Additionally, Nudge Security is the only SaaS security solution that provides visibility into the AI supply chain, showing which AI applications are used in the digital supply chains of each SaaS provider. With this visibility, customers can readily understand where AI dependencies could introduce risks.

Nudge Security leads SaaS security innovation

In addition to addressing the security challenges presented by generative AI, Nudge Security is leading the market with other compelling SaaS security capabilities:

• Patented SaaS discovery: Immediate and complete visibility into all SaaS usage with the ability to discover and categorize virtually any SaaS app via an advanced machine learning engine.
• Third-party risk management: Availability of over 14,000 security profiles for SaaS and AI providers, visibility into vendor breach histories, and real-time alerts when security incidents impact SaaS providers.
• SaaS identity management: Visibility into all SaaS identities, including OAuth grants, with the ability to revoke access directly from the Nudge Security user interface and generate audit-ready reports for user access reviews and employee offboarding.
• SaaS governance: Dashboards enable customers to visualize and share progress in adoption of SaaS security best practices like SSO coverage, removal of unused accounts, reduction in usage of unsanctioned apps, and more.

Nudge Security offers a fully-functional free 14-day trial which delivers a complete inventory of all SaaS apps within minutes of starting the trial.

Follow Nudge Security on LinkedIn and X, and visit www.nudgesecurity.com to learn more.

About Nudge Security

Nudge Security helps modern organizations manage SaaS security and governance at scale by working with employees, not against them. With an innovative, patented approach to SaaS discovery, Nudge Security empowers IT and security teams to regain control of their security posture and minimize time spent on tedious, manual administration tasks. Nudge Security was founded in 2021 by Russell Spitler and Jaime Blasco and is backed by Ballistic Ventures and Forgepoint Capital.

About Forgepoint Capital

Forgepoint is an early-stage venture capital firm that partners with transformative cybersecurity and infrastructure software companies. With the largest sector-focused investment team, over $1 billion in AUM, and an active portfolio of nearly 40 companies, the firm brings over 100 years of collective company-building expertise and an Advisory Council of nearly 100 industry leaders to support exceptional entrepreneurs. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, Forgepoint is proud to cultivate a diverse, global community dedicated to backing builders of the digital future. Learn more at https://www.forgepointcap.com and https://www.linkedin.com/company/forgepoint-capital/.

SOURCE Nudge Security