Terbium Labs, a Baltimore, MD-based, cybersecurity startup sporting an artificial intelligence (AI) platform to crawl the dark web for stolen credentials, has landed $6 million in venture funding, running its total haul to $16.1 million since 2015.
The 20-employee security specialist said it intends to use the money to add MSSPs and flesh out its channel program, extend its sales reach into Europe and further develop its flagship Matchlight dark web monitoring platform. At this point, Terbium claims some 7,000 Matchlight users.
Terbium's Matchlight is relatively new to the market, springing out of private beta in September, 2016 as a quicker way for businesses and the public sector to detect breaches: Its search engine scours the dark web for stolen and sensitive data, using data fingerprint technology to help companies find their information. In effect, Terbium’s bet is that its technology will hasten the discovery of data breaches by finding the loot first. Matchlight’s sweet spot is small- to medium-sized businesses that lack the resources to respond to alerts.
Matchlight's features and services include:
- Fingerprint monitoring for client lists, account credentials or confidential documents.
- Monitoring of keywords or patterns such as email addresses, credit cards or identification numbers.
- Retrospective search available by web interface or API.
- Analysis and reporting.
“We see a big opportunity in what we call the mainstream market – all of those companies that couldn’t necessarily consume this and couldn’t necessarily do it themselves,” Danny Rogers, Terbium’s co-founder and CEO told the Baltimore Sun. “There’s really no one serving that market in a meaningful way.”
The additional funding is important beyond what it means for the company itself: In the wake of the massive Equifax data breach, Terbium’s directive to identify and recoup stolen information is a vitally important step to take for injured customers whose personal information is often sold by cyber criminals on the dark web.
“Post-Equifax, there’s a lot of concern about this in the marketplace,” said Rogers. “What’s changing now is more and more companies are realizing this is something they need.”
Terbium has recently been filling in its C-suite and executive management team, hiring Munish Walther-Puri as chief research officer and earlier promoting Claire Gollnick to CTO and appointing Brett Davis as VP of sales. Tied to the funding is a seat on Terbium’s board of directors for Rick Grinnell, Glasswing’s founder and managing partner, and funding round leader.
"Our fund is focused on startups that leverage AI technology to create new products and platforms that ensure that the data, users, and devices of the increasingly connected world are secure," said Grinnell. “Terbium Labs checks both boxes by offering enterprises a truly unique approach to information security and fraud prevention powered by an AI-controlled dark web crawler,” he said.
