Each and every day, people all over the world send and share documents to co-workers and clients, family and friends. But while it's assumed that the files arrive safe and sound in the recipients' inbox, it's tough to know whether or not those private messages, charts, records and photos have been intercepted along the way.
Sign up with Boston-based security startup docTrackr, however, and your digital documents will get a bodyguard to protect and prevent them from being lost along the way to, and once they reach, their ultimate destination.
Better yet, starting Thursday, individuals and both larger and small businesses can receive free access to docTrackr for Gmail, a Chrome Extension that enables advanced security features and powerful controls, including the ability to remotely destroy documents, after they’ve been sent.
Clement Cazalot, docTrackr co-founder and CEO, explained the company to BostInno in a comparison to the swanky spy film Mission Impossible. Similar to the top-of-the-line protection for confidential dossiers and the mission videos that combust after viewing, the offerings of the startup provide high quality, dependable security for said documents and files shared over the Web.
Cazalot and fellow Co-founder and CTO Alex Negrea first had the idea for docTrackr in early 2011, when they were both still developing chips and SIM cards for European credit cards in Paris.
"We realized that what we were doing could be applied to documents," said Cazalot, of the design and install of the plastic payment's securitization systems.
Cazalot and Negrea began exploring the idea on their own. Until they got the call from Techstars, that is.
"Techstars contacted us and said that if we stayed in France, we would likely stay a service company," shared the CEO, " but said if we came to Boston, that we could be a full startup."
The national accelerator certainly spotted docTrackr's potential early. Within weeks of moving the United States, Cazalot said that the startup was sparking interest in investors and enterprises who wanted to get in on the company's growth.
"Literally, this is the 'American dream' for me," admitted Cazalot, laughing. " There's no other place in the world where docTrackr could have been more successful."
After graduating from Boston's branch of Techstars, docktrackr signed offers for three global partnerships, including Adobe, Microsoft and Box.
"Four months later, we were already raising $2 million in fundraising from top tier investors," noted Cazalot, of the company's seed round, led by Polaris Venture Partners, in October 2012. "That can only happen in the U.S... Boston was really a great community to welcome us as foreigners and entrepreneurs."
Thursday's launch of docTrackr's free Gmail expansion marks yet another milestone for the company, which is dedicated to "democratizing security" for all – especially in the wake of the NSA scandals, said Clement. The company will make its API available to the public, and hopes to extend its customer base beyond company clients. Explained the CEO:
Even though it was the best technology, they were rejecting as smaller businesses or individuals. We said to ourselves, we have the tech to make everything secure, so why not take that to market by opening up our system and reaching behind our traditional market?
With a staff of 15, docTrackr still keeps shop in Paris, but the majority of its leadership, Cazalot and Negrea included, work from the Boston office at Atlas Partner Chris Lynch's big data space, hack/reduce. The company also recently poached Steven Abramowitz, who previously worked at LogMeIn, to be their senior director of marketing.
Noted Cazalot in closing:
By having this strategy of opening up the company to partners and providing all of our tech to other market segments, we realize there is great value in being a transparent company, especially when [we're] based in Boston and there are so many enterprise and B2C companies...The key to our current success is being able to help all parties.
