CyberSmart recently announced a record year of growth, marked by a large funding round, headcount and customer growth as well as geographical market expansion.
The company also recently completed its Series B funding round in January 2023 with £12.75 million. The company’s revenue has grown by 110% from £2 million ARR to £4.2 million ARR in the last financial year; expanded its customer base by an additional 1,000 customers across various verticals such as healthcare, retail, education, as well as construction; and recruited extensively from a team of 40 to 60 employees.
“When I co-founded CyberSmart in 2017, I went in with the mission of empowering SMEs to future-proof themselves against the ever-evolving cyber threat landscape. It is humbling to see how far we have come since our days coding as part of the GCHQ Accelerator Programme, and the number of businesses we are supporting today both in the UK and beyond,” said Jamie Akhtar, CEO and co-founder of CyberSmart. “I am grateful to our growing team and all of our investors who are walking alongside us on this journey and look forward to seeing what we can achieve in the year ahead.”
Initially, CyberSmart was born out of GCHQ’s cyber accelerator programme in January 2017; now, its security offering includes guided processes to government-grade certification, round-the-clock monitoring of an organisation’s security posture, staff training, and vulnerability scanning. Customers can also secure free insurance via CyberSmart partners, Aviva and Superscript, upon certification (i.e Cyber Essentials, Cyber Essentials Plus). In addition, the company completed a soft launch of its new ‘Privacy Toolbox’ product to help SMEs stay on top of GDPR compliance and data protection requirements. And, customers are able to receive all this at the cost of a cup of coffee, per user, per day.
Last year, CyberSmart won the SC Awards Europe 2022 for Best SME Security Solution, CompTIA Spotlight Awards 2022 for UK Innovative Vendor, UK IT Industry Awards 2022 for UK Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Cybersecurity Breakthrough Awards for SMB Cybersecurity Solution of the Year. What’s more, in late July last year, CyberSmart was selected by European Innovation Platform, KickStart, to take part in a 10-week scale-up acceleration programme that will play a pivotal role in introducing their technology to big corporations across the DACH region.
CyberSmart’s exceptional success has only continued to attract a wealth of talent who seek to take part in and contribute to the company’s growth journey. Vicky Cartwright joined the company as Director of Marketing, after working as Marketing Director with Kaspersky for 10 years; while Mike Aspinall was recently appointed CFO, having formerly worked with Exonar, Questionmark and Parity Group. Indeed, the company has attracted leading and returning investors from IQ Capital, Eos Venture Partners, and Winton Ventures to Oxx, British Patient Capital, Legal & General Capital, and Solano Partners.
“The threat of cybercrime continues to rise, particularly for smaller businesses without the resources or knowledge to protect themselves. However, CyberSmart continues to go from strength to strength in its mission to protect this underserved market,” said Phil Edmondson-Jones, partner at Oxx. “Since investing in CyberSmart, we’ve been delighted to see the business celebrate a year of rapid growth, begin its expansion into other markets, and refine its offer to SMEs. And we’re confident that 2023 will only deliver further growth.”
