– SPHERE secures $10m in Series A funding
– The round was led by ForgePoint Capital with participation from security leaders including Omkhar Arasaratnam (former Executive Director, Head of Data Protection Technology at JPMorgan Chase); Joel Caminer (former Global Head of Technology Risk Management and Information Security at TD Securities); Adnane Charchour (former President & CEO at Scivantage) and Sounil Yu (former Chief Security Scientist at Bank of America)
– Don Dixon and Will Lin, Managing Directors at ForgePoint Capital, will join SPHERE’s board of directors.
– SPHERE is a woman-owned cybersecurity business focused on providing best-of-breed software and services for access governance across data, platforms and applications.

– Red Canary, a provider of SaaS-based security operations solutions, has closed its $81m Series C financing round led by global growth equity investor Summit Partners.
– Summit Partners was joined by existing investors Noro-Moseley Partners and Access Venture Partners.

– Spectral, an Israeli startup that’s developing automated tools to help developer teams spot mistakes such as confidential data buried in code, has emerged from stealth today with $6.2 million in a seed round of funding co-led by Amiti and MizMaa.
– Recent data from IBM suggests that the average cost of a data breach globally is $3.9 million, a figure that rises to more than $8.6 million for U.S. companies. As businesses have had to double down on their digital efforts over the past year due to the pandemic, this could open the door to more costly coding mistakes as businesses rush to ship new code.

– 1Kosmos secured funding of $2.6m.
– The funding will be used to accelerate the company’s growth and product roadmap.
– 1Kosmos has assembled an advisory board that brings together top professionals in the cybersecurity industry.
– The company’s indisputable ID-proofing process leverages user-uploaded identity credentials.
– This eliminates the need for usernames and passwords or complex multi-factor authentication.
– 1Kosmos integrates with any application, website or operating system and doesn’t require additional software or technology.

– Fast is a company that offers a one-click purchasing process.
– The company raised $102m in Series B funding.
– The round was led by Addition and Stripe with participation from existing investors Index Ventures, Susa Ventures, Sugar Capital, and Jaren Glover.
– The company plans to double-down on its product expansion, reaching even more sellers through new use cases such as subscriptions and one-click online media purchases.
– Fast is going to also move into more markets outside of the US.
– Plus the funding will power continued hiring of top talent.

– Scalarr is a machine learning based ad fraud prevention company based in Delaware.
– The company raised $7.5m in Series A funding.
– The round was led by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), with participation from TMT Investments, OTB Ventures, and Speedinvest.
– The new investment will be used to expand the company’s presence and operations in Asia.

– Axiad is a provider of a cloud passwordless authentication platform based in Santa Clara, Calif.
– The company raised $20m in its first outside financing.
– Invictus Growth Partners made the investment.
– Invictus Co-founders and Managing Partners, John DeLoche and William Nettles, will join Axiad’s board.
– The company intends to use the fudns to accelerate sales, marketing and development of its multi-factor authentication platform.