An Austin startup focused on reducing the risk that company data gets compromised or falls out of compliance with policies and regulations has raised $15 million in new funding.
Altr, which emerged from stealth in 2018 with its initial $15 million in funding, said its new investment came from the same group that initially backed it. That includes Ronin Capital CEO John Stafford III and several other angel investors.
"Data security and privacy remains dominated by outmoded solutions that all have the same problem—they weren't created to achieve innate cyber-resiliency, and most underestimate the challenges of the cloud," said Dave Sikora, CEO at ALTR, in a statement. "This new funding provides us the latitude to embrace the broader market opportunity we have with our DSaaS approach and underscores our momentum in leveraging where the market is going."
Sikora, a software entrepreneur and executive who helped lead ForeFront Group and founded mobile app company Digby, is the former CEO of Stratfor, a global intelligence service that’s based in Austin.
He said more companies are trying to secure data and ensure privacy as new regulations, including the California Consumer Privacy Act force companies to adjust.
Altr offers its product as a data security-as-a-service offering, and it integrates data security within applications using blockchain-based technologies to maintain records while masking for privacy.
The startup has around 50 employees across offices in Austin and Florida, and it has four open positions. Alter has landed 26-plus patents. And it has also built out an strong list of advisors, including Mike Maples, Sr., a former executive at IBM and Microsoft; Fred Burton, former deputy chief of counterterrorism at the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service; Michael Hermus, former CTO of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; John Swainson, former CEO at CA; and Scott Able, co-founder of Spiceworks.
