Cyberattacks have become alarmingly routine, with more and more industries facing the threat of having their information stolen for ransom. Recent high-profile ransomware attacks on the Colonial Pipeline and JBS have threatened our national supply of gasoline and meat, and some experts estimate that as much as half of the unemployment benefits in the United States have been stolen by cyber criminals abroad.
“With cyber risk becoming a problem for a growing number of business functions, cybersecurity knowledge and skills should no longer be the preserve of a few technical people hidden away in a back office,” James Hadley, an industry veteran with more than a decade in the cybersecurity space, said in a statement. “Everyone from the teams who build software to the CEO now needs to play their part in addressing a pervasive company issue.”
This is why Hadley created Immersive Labs, a platform that teaches cybersecurity skills to corporate employees at all levels. The four-year-old startup announced Monday that it closed on a $75 million Series C, capping off a year of more than 100 percent year-over-year growth. The round was co-led by new investors Insight Partners and Menlo Ventures, with participation from Citi Ventures and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
“The cybersecurity threat will only increase,” Venky Ganesan, a partner at Menlo Ventures, said in a statement. “To protect against ever-evolving threats, the cyber workforce must constantly expand and evolve. Immersive Labs helps large organizations confront this head-on by combining smart data analysis with targeted training.”
Unlike many other cybersecurity companies, Immersive Labs doesn’t develop endpoint solutions or firewalls to protect companies from attacks. And it doesn’t rely on things like PowerPoints and e-courses, which are often used in cybersecurity training. Instead, its Cyber Workforce Optimization platform uses data insights to understand what skills are required for a given team, then offers role-specific “gamified” training using real and current threat intelligence.
Immersive Labs was launched in the U.K., and opened its U.S. headquarters here in Boston back in 2019. The company now has more than 200 employees, and it plans to triple its headcount in the next two years, as well as increase its presence across Asia and Europe.
This latest investment will also be used to scale Immersive Labs’ platform, and take advantage of a renewed interest in cyber threats sparked by recent attacks and the wave of people working remotely post-pandemic.
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