If there's one thing Curricula CEO Nick Santora wants you to know, it's that training to protect yourself from hackers and phishing scams "doesn't need to be boring anymore."
Curricula, a story-based security awareness training platform, is designed to make learning about how to protect yourself from threats online fun, engaging and memorable. In addition to capturing their customers' attention, it seems they've also caught the eye of RCP Equity, a newly formed semi-private equity fund.
On Monday, Curricula announced it raised $3 million in funding from RCP Equity. Since founding with just four employees in 2015, the startup says it has bootstrapped its operations.
"The funding is primarily for growing our sales and marketing channels, expanding our application, for the software, to have more capabilities and jumping into the MSP marketing channel market," Santora told Atlanta Inno.
In a day and age were data breaches and corporate hacks are a frequent occurrence, Curricula uses story-telling episodes, guided training programs and even test phishing emails to prepare employees for attacks at work and at home. The startup caters to companies across nearly every vertical, from other startups to casinos to even health care companies.
"We essentially teach companies how to not get hacked," he said.
Though Hollywood would have most of us believe that hacks happen like something out of "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," hacking schemes typically aren't that complex, according to Santora.
"Almost 90% of (data breaches) are caused by human error," he said.
Curricula and RCP Equity have Venture Atlanta to thank for the partnership; the startup and equity firm met at the southeast's largest investment conference this past October. Santora said most VC firms and other investors that pitched to Curricula never really understood their business model, until RCP Equity came along.
"They also had a tremendous understanding of the market," he said. "Being business owners themselves, they were in the email security space ... They knew that we had a product that companies needed and that MSP's wanted to sell."
Curricula has jumped aboard the private equity train, but Santora said bootstrapping his business for the first four years was the right decision for them. Having supported themselves and focused on growing their business, Curricula was able to leverage finding the right partner at the right time.
"The way we did that was sticking to the plan and building a very powerful, sustainable business," he said. "You can do a lot with a very small team if you have a real business. That’s kind of why we stuck to our guns and we had a lot of offers along the way but we focused on our mission to grow instead of someone who’s mission was to fill their pockets."
Curricula currently employs a staff of nine, but plans to add 30 new positions in marketing and sales this year, more than tripling its team.
"We need more people to help spread the word of Curricula from a sales and marketing point of view," he said. "For us, our mission is to help teach people how to be safer both at work and home. Finding the right employees to support that mission is important."
