Helsinki-based Hoxhunt, a cybersecurity training platform, has raised $40 million in its Series B funding round. The financing round was led by New York-based Level Equity Management alongside participation from existing investor Icebreaker.vc, which recently invested in Helppy and Cachet.
Hoxhunt will use the investment towards the development of its leading-edge technology and accelerate growth in new markets with a focus on North America.
“Email is the biggest threat to enterprise security; that’s why human nature is the most important cybersecurity challenge to solve, instead of building incrementally better mousetraps at the technical perimeter,” said Hoxhunt CEO Mika Aalto. “Our first-to-market platform enables measurable behavior change and cultural transformation. Our fundamentally different approach combines personalized and hyper-realistic training, adapted to each individual’s skill, role, location, and language.”
“There is tremendous growth potential in the cybersecurity awareness category, which we at Level Equity Partners are thrilled to invest in again with Hoxhunt, who we see as best-in-class in terms of innovation, product design, and leadership,” said Sarah Sommer, co-Founder and Partner at Level Equity Management. “In just two years, the number of cybersecurity unicorn companies has jumped from 6 to over 50, but too few are security awareness vendors. Next-level security training represents a huge opportunity in terms of ROI and, more importantly, doing good for the world.”
People-first cybersecurity platform
In the past two years, the cybersecurity market has seen explosive growth. Cybersecurity spending is projected to grow from $262.4 billion in 2022 to $458.9 billion in 2025 with tightening regulatory and insurance pressure driving higher expenditure on awareness. Cybercrime costs are projected to swell to $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. These are projected as cybercrime represents an ever-worsening pandemic costing global businesses trillions of dollars per year.
As per reports, email is the main vector of transmission as 90% of all breaches ranging from ransomware to Business Email Compromise are initiated by a phishing email. Hoxhunt is turning the tide on phishing attacks with breakthrough innovation. Their unprecedented results are supported by hard data and glowing testimonials from partners like Microsoft and Deloitte, and customers such as DocuSign, G2 and a number of governmental agencies.
Founded by Mika Aalto, Pyry Åvist, Karri Kurunmäki and Pasi Salo in 2016, Hoxhunt works with the mission to reduce the human risk by rewriting the rules of cybersecurity training. It puts humans first in cybersecurity. It has dedicated to create a better cybersecurity training for employees, one that is made with people in mind.
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The people-first cybersecurity platform makes good email cybersecurity a habit. Hoxhunt’s gamified platform rewards employees for reporting simulated and real email threats, using machine learning to create millions of phishing simulations. The company lightens the load for security teams, and upskills whole organisations with unprecedented engagement rates at the push of a button.
