Our $200M+ Series C Investment: Better Protecting Our Customers with AI-Based Email Security

Over the past four years since Sanjay and I founded Abnormal Security, we’ve observed three important shifts. First, the shift to cloud email platforms as more organizations move away from on-premises solutions to cloud-native email platforms. Second, the shift toward the modern workplace and remote work, largely brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. And finally, the shift in email attacks from the traditional attacks of the past that simply contain malicious URLs and attachments, to modern, high-value attacks that are socially engineered and contain no traditional indicators of compromise. Over the same four years, business email compromise has remained the top cybersecurity threat and continues to cause more financial loss each year, with an estimated $43 billion in exposed dollar loss since June 2016.

From Abnormal’s inception, we knew that to solve our customers’ challenges we had to build a truly innovative product that stops all email attacks, especially the advanced socially-engineered ones that easily bypass the traditional secure email gateways. The only way to do so was to create a modern solution that uses an AI-based behavioral approach to detect attacks with the highest efficacy, and one that integrates with cloud email through an API so customers could deploy in seconds—driving faster time to value. The modern architecture would also allow us to directly integrate with the thousands of signals provided by cloud email platforms.

We’ve created that solution in our next-generation Abnormal Integrated Cloud Email Security platform which provides our customers comprehensive protection against all email attacks, simplifies their email security infrastructure, and streamlines operations to make their security teams and workforce more productive.

As we’ve grown over the past few years, from just ten people in 2018 to more than four hundred today, our focus on solving the needs of our customers has never wavered. Over 5% of the Fortune 1000 now rely on Abnormal Security to protect them from modern email attacks, and the launch of our Integrated Cloud Email Security product eliminates the need for a secure email gateway.

Our customers have seen the value that Abnormal provides, which is evidenced by our 99% renewal rate. On Gartner® Peer Insights™, we have a 4.9 ranking out of 5, with a 100% recommendation from participating companies. Insight Partners saw the massive potential that Abnormal has within the email security market, which is why they led our $210 million Series C funding.

When we raised our Series B funding 18 months ago, I promised our customers greater value, more capabilities, and better customer support. We’ve delivered on each of those promises and as we receive an even larger investment, I’m excited about how we can continue to further deliver on each of them. Some of our plans include:

• Greater Value. We’re continuing to enhance our product and increase the efficacy of our AI-based behavioral models to better protect you against ever-evolving attacks.

• More Capabilities. We’re expanding our product capabilities across multiple countries and languages to ensure that your organization is protected no matter where your employees are based. And we’re continuing to fuel our product velocity by launching new security products.

• Better Support. We’re hiring across all departments, including customer success and customer support, to ensure that we engage and serve your needs better.

While today is an important milestone, we know the job of satisfying our customers and prospects never stops. With more resources and the support of Insight Partners, we will continue to iterate, improve, and provide value to you.

For more details on our Series C, I encourage you to check out this article by James Rundle at The Wall Street Journal. And if you’d like to learn more about the Abnormal platform, we’d love to provide you with a personalized demo or an email security risk assessment. There’s no time like the present to see why customers say that it is “the best five minutes of integration effort that you’ve ever had to return on investment.”

Thank you for your continued support of Abnormal. We look forward to continuing to exceed your expectations as our team and capabilities grow.