Risk Ledger has secured £6.25 million to prevent cyber attacks on the supply chains of the nation’s largest enterprises.
Organisations have been focused on protecting their own networks, applications, physical premises and people against cyber security attacks – but Risk Ledger says they have neglected their exposure to suppliers.
According to recent research by KPMG, 73% of surveyed organisations had experienced at least one significant disruption, caused by a third party, within the last three years.
The funding round was led by UK investor Mercia Ventures, which joins Seedcamp, Firstminute Capital, Episode 1, Village Global as well as Finnish VC Lifeline Ventures as investors. To date, Risk Ledger has raised a total of £9.8m in venture funding.
Recent cyber attacks on The Metropolitan Police and NHS Trusts through their supply chains have the potential to compromise the UK’s national security and private citizen data. A threat alert by the National Cyber Security Centre is also warning of increased state-sponsored attacks against UK critical national infrastructure.
Risk Ledger offers an innovative social network approach to supply chain risk management, allowing organisations to use the platform as both clients and suppliers, able to share with connected organisations a single profile of their controls across 12 security domains, including ESG and financial risk.
This reveals relationships in many directions and allows for a unique visualisation of the entire supply chain ecosystem, and the uncovering of critical interdependencies, concentration risks and single points of failure well beyond immediate third party connections.
It also results in more accurate and real-time data, giving organisations the ability to make better decisions to protect their business from supply chain threats.
“The unique ability of Risk Ledger to map relationships and interdependencies in the supply chain allows organisations to understand where they sit within their own supplier ecosystem and how different incidents may impact their organisation given those interdependencies,” said Haydn Brooks, co-founder and CEO at Risk Ledger.
Risk Ledger has seen rapid adoption over the past two years and today counts over 5,000 organisations with 17,000 users across large public sector and financial services organisations as customers. Client bookings have consistently doubled year on year, or more, since the company launched its platform in 2020.
Risk Ledger’s growing international client base includes many organisations in sensitive sectors such as critical national infrastructure, financial services and the public sector, which face particular regulatory scrutiny and need to demonstrate how they effectively limit the risks emanating from their suppliers.
Mercia Ventures invested from its Northern Venture Capital Trust (VCT) funds. Adam Lovell of Mercia added: “Third-party risk is a major security concern for companies as it’s a factor over which they traditionally have little control.
“Risk Ledger offers an exciting new approach to third-party risk management. Haydn and Daniel have made remarkable progress in developing the business to date and have a very clear view of the way forward. We are delighted to support their ambitious growth plans.”
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