A division of Wichita-based Koch Industries Inc. has led a $10 million funding round into a technology startup that helps protect intellectual property from theft by foreign governments.
Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT) led the Series A round into Strider Technologies, a Maryland company that started last year and set about commercializing a platform that uses machine learning and proprietary data sets to provide companies with risk intelligence.
“Strider is creating solutions to address organizational security gaps through its software that delivers immediate value without requiring any customer data or network access,” Byron Knight, managing director of KDT, said in a press release. “We’re thrilled to partner with the Strider team as they scale their operations and products, which we believe will provide significant benefits for any organization operating in today’s rapidly evolving global environment.”
The funding round was joined by Ottawa-based One9 Ventures and existing Strider investor DataTribe.
In addition to the financial infusion — which comes as Strider plans to open an office in Salt Lake City for a western U.S. footprint — the company’s board of directors will add Michael Palmer, president of i360, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries.
"We founded Strider with a clear mission — create a capability that ensures our customers maintain a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving commercial environment where nation-states are targeting their talent and IP,” said Greg Levesque, CEO and co-founder of Strider. “Partnering with Koch Disruptive Technologies will enable us to drive this mission forward and expand our ability to deliver cutting-edge data and software to our customers that better safeguard their employees, protect their innovation and property, and secure their long-term competitiveness.”
According to a report last year from the Baltimore Business Journal, Levesque founded the company with his twin brother, Eric Levesque, with the pair bringing background experience in IP theft, national security and finance to the venture.
Strider's data sets track information on millions of names and thousands of front organizations. The platform is intended to provide companies with the information they may need to remain vigilant, Greg Levesque told the BBJ, and protect themselves from foreign state-directed activity, including from China, Russia, Iran and other nation-states that may condone spying.
In the press release announcing the new funding round, nation-state directed IP theft was identified as a $600 billion annual problem in the U.S. alone.
The Strider deal continues investment rounds worth hundreds of millions of dollars into new technologies that have been led by KDT since its founding in 2017.
The Chase Koch-led division has invested in companies with specialties ranging from the mobile payment market and advanced ultrasound technologies to 3D metal printing and cloud computing services.
