Cybersecurity human risk management platform OutThink has raised £8.8 million in a seed stage funding round.
Built by chief information security officers and led by CEO Flavius Plesu, OutThink aims to turn security awareness on its head. Instead of treating human behaviour – which is the cause of 91% of data breaches worldwide – as the problem, OutThink treats it as the solution.
By innovatively leveraging machine learning, natural language processing and applied psychology, it identifies the attitudes, intentions and sentiment of individuals within an organisation. The platform combines this human intelligence with data from integrated Microsoft Defender and Sentinel to present live dashboards visually showcasing the overall human risk picture at a department, group or organisation level.
From here, CISOs use OutThink to deliver targeted training – via Microsoft Teams – that educates and allows security teams to listen and learn from their people.
It is currently used by the likes of Whirlpool, Danske Bank, Rothschild, NatWest and other FTSE 100 brands.
The investment was led by AlbionVC. TriplePoint Capital, Forward Partners, Gapminder and Innovate UK also participated. It will allow OutThink to continue expanding its technology leadership and accelerate international distribution.
“OutThink is probably the best cybersecurity training and awareness platform out there,” said Danske Bank’s security training and awareness lead Mihaela Hozmache. “But this is not just about innovative technology. This is about people.
“What struck me from day one of working with OutThink is the professionalism and dedication of its people. I’ve never seen this type of commitment and level of service from any of the vendors and consultants I’ve ever worked with.”
OutThink’s enterprise annual recurring revenue (ARR) quadrupled in the last year.
“The idea for OutThink was born out of frustration that existing solutions on the market were failing,” said CEO and founder Plesu.
“Yet it also came from a passionate belief that if we engaged people beyond traditional security awareness training into human risk management, we could make them the organisation’s strongest defence mechanism.”