Sublime Security, a Washington, D.C.-based startup developing email security software, has raised $60 million in a Series B funding round led by IVP, with participation from other West Coast firms — Index Ventures, Decibel Partners, and Slow Ventures.
The firm had closed its Series A led by Index Ventures earlier this year. Series A investors include Crowdstrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch, who also joined the Sublime board.
Tapping Microsoft, Google Customers
Founded by Josh Kamdjou, who managed cybersecurity for the U.S. Department of Defense for a decade, and IanThiel, a former Optimizely executive, Sublime helps users of Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace secure their email. Its customers include Spotify, Reddit and Elastic.
“Today, I’m more convinced than ever that the path we chose, despite resetting our clock back a couple years, is right. Not only for tackling email security, but the architecture of the future in a new world of AI-assisted threats,” said Kamdjou, Sublime’s CEO.
In a blog post on the funding, Kamdjou said “a lot of people thought we were crazy” when Sublime set out in 2021 to build email security using a detection engine backed by a programmable domain-specific language, or DSL. Sublime also built its business differently — without “a single cold sales email or phone call,” or a “paid ad.”
Focus on AI-Assisted Attacks
Sublime’s core platform, built with AI, helps customers to self-host the software and manage threats. It also features an Attack Score to prioritize email threats. Attack Score can also be combined with other threat detection methods to develop unified threat protection.
Having established its ability to provide more security than Microsoft and Google do to their users, Sublime is eyeing opportunities emerging from growing numbers of AI-assisted cyberattacks.
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“The real-time detection engines of tomorrow must rapidly adapt to changes in the threat landscape, while working at massive scale and across tremendous environmental diversity,” Kamdjou said. “Detection efficacy gets stale otherwise. Not to mention the lack of transparency, visibility, and control that most practitioners at large enterprises need to do their jobs effectively.”
Alongside the funding announcement, Sublime Security said it has hired former Wiz executive Colin Jones as president to run go-to-market. Jones was chief revenue officer at Wiz, which earlier this year rejected a $23 billion acquisition offer from Google’s parent Alphabet. At Wiz, Jones is credited with taking the company’s revenue from $0 to $100 million in a record 18 months.
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