A London cybersecurity startup has won investment from an array of former Big Tech executives.
Klarytee is a software platform that builds security into the data itself for large organisations to handle sensitive information.
It has closed a £700,000 pre-seed funding round backed by early-stage VC fund Concept Ventures. High-profile angel investors in the deal include former Twitter CISO Michael Coates, former group CEO of Bupa Evelyn Bourke, the founders of cybersecurity company Digital Shadows, ex-managing director of Accenture Brad Cable and Desigan Chinniah, board member of The Tor Project.
Founded by serial entrepreneur Dr Nithin Thomas, who worked in the security industry for 11 years, Klarytee provides businesses with encryption and access control which is built into their most sensitive data to ensure that no matter where information goes it remains secure, with the organisation retaining complete visibility of who has access to it.
The idea for Klarytee was inspired by Thomas’s belief that productivity is severely hampered by a security philosophy that restricts the users by securing the data within an organisation’s boundaries in an effort to mitigate risk rather than putting controls on the data itself.
By building a new security product category which encrypts fragments of data at source in real time, any data content is protected beyond the enterprise boundary and across multiple workflows whether documents, SaaS applications or even messaging and social media apps.
The local large language model (LLM) integrated into Klarytee scans for sensitive information and applies protection by default to ensure sensitive data cannot be exposed to unauthorised access, including cloud AI platforms such as ChatGPT.
As a Microsoft Partner, Klarytee has developed an add-in for Microsoft Word that can be directly integrated into the document workflow to enable one-click encryption, decryption and authentication. Once an authenticated user decrypts the data, it only exists within the memory of their device or application and is permanently erased once that app or device is closed.
Customers are already using Klarytee in cases where organisations need to share sensitive information on a privileged basis, such as investment banking deal teams, or when leveraging SaaS and public cloud services such as generative AI.
“Data has become the most valuable asset a company owns, but evolving workplace habits that require greater collaboration and sharing of data are putting enormous pressures on enterprise security,” Dr Thomas.
“Imagine being able to receive your banking password via WhatsApp or X without having to worry about compliance or security issues. Klarytee is transforming enterprise security architecture by helping teams to be more productive across the platforms that they use every day while embracing the latest technologies from AI to cloud.”
Coates said: “Klarytee is an essential tool in a CISO’s armoury as organisations move to a more data centric security model that focuses on protecting their data over infrastructure beyond the enterprise boundaries. Klarytee’s vision to simplify and consolidate the enterprise security stack by focusing on data instead of infrastructure is incredibly powerful.”