Immersive Labs today announced that Goldman Sachs has led an $8m Series A investment round in its fast-growing cyber security skills platform. The funding, made alongside smaller private investors, will grow an offering which arms enterprise IT and cyber security teams with the latest skills by combining threat data with gamified learning.
The award-winning Immersive Labs platform uses real-time feeds of the latest attack techniques, hacker psychology and technological vulnerabilities to rapidly build cyber wargames for IT and security teams to learn from. The platform can upskill people within hours of a threat emerging and can also be used to identify and fix less immediate weaknesses in the talent pool.
The company was founded by ex-GCHQ researcher James Hadley and has Robert Hannigan as Chair of the Advisory Board. Current clients include global corporates with complex cyber security needs, such as BAE Systems, Sophos and Grant Thornton.
The funding will go towards adding people and infrastructure to develop the platform further, supporting its continued growth and rapid go-to-market strategy.
James Hadley, CEO of Immersive Labs, said, “Large organizations are facing a dual cyber security talent problem; not only is the number of professionals seriously lagging but so is the pace at which their skills are developed. If you are able to recruit the right people in the first place, today’s attackers move so fast your team may quickly fall behind.
“Our goal is to reduce this gap. With increased capital, we can help more companies continue to upskill their cyber talent in a way which keeps pace with the threat landscape.”
Andy Ozment, Chief Information Security Officer at Goldman Sachs, said, “Having rolled out the Immersive Lab platform globally ourselves, we are aware of the benefits it brings to large organizations. Continuous training programmes are critical to meeting evolving cyber security threats. The Immersive platform has helped us hone the skills of the people at the front line of our cyber defenses and identify new talent throughout the organisation.”
Robert Hannigan, Former Director of GCHQ, said, “It is great to see a company with the reputation of Goldman Sachs getting firmly behind one of the fastest-growing UK cyber security success stories. Not only does it speak volumes of everything the team at Immersive Labs has achieved to date, but also of the massive growth potential the company has.”
About Immersive Labs
Founder James Hadley had the initial idea after running GCHQ’s Cyber Summer School, teaching 18-25-year-old students everything from evasion to penetration testing over a ten-week period. He noticed the classes with the highest success rate were the ethical hacking challenges featuring games, which enabled students to solve problems, as opposed to sitting passively in a classroom. Just two years later, the company has grown from just two people to 65 globally. Immersive Labs has offices in Bristol, London and New York. For more information on Immersive Labs’ offering, please visit https://www.immersivelabs.com/.
About Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments
The Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments group seeks to make long term strategic investments in fast growing technology companies that are uniquely positioned to benefit from a deeper business relationship with Goldman Sachs. More information on Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments is available online: https://www.goldmansachs.com/what-we-do/investing-and-lending/principal-strategic-investments/psi.html
