Concentric AI Secures $45M to Expand AI-Powered Data Cataloging and Security Tools

Concentric bags $45M to expand its AI-powered data cataloging tools - SiliconANGLE

Concentric bags $45M to expand its AI-powered data cataloging tools Concentric Inc. said today it has closed on $45 million in a fresh round of funding led by Top Tier Capital Partners and HarbourVest Partners. The Series B round also saw the participation of CyberFuture and existing investors like Ballistic Ventures, Engineering Capital, Clear Ventures and Citi Ventures, bringing the startup's total amount raised to more than $67 million. The company is targeting a global market for data access governance that's expected to grow to more than $8 billion by 2027, and to do that it's hoping to cater to companies that are awash with data they cannot easily protect. Its main product is a kind of data cataloging tool that uses AI to seek out all of a company's information, including data that lives in infrequently accessed locations, and flag anything that's in danger of being compromised. According to Concentric, most enterprises today have a big problem when it comes to data inventory. The problem is that they have amassed so much business-critical data, and stored it in so many different places, that they cannot possibly hope to safeguard it all. The information is spread across disparate storage buckets on multiple cloud infrastructure platforms, software-as-a-service platforms, cloud-based file-storage and so on. Despite this, most companies lack an efficient way to keep track of it. Concentric cites one survey that shows how more than 50% of enterprises rely on Excel spreadsheets as their main tool for data privacy and compliance reporting. Using Concentric's autonomous data cataloging tool, security teams have a much easier way to discover and evaluate their data, and remediate any issues that might put it at risk, without needing to hire teams of analysts or rely on end users to assist them. Concentric's tool works by linking to all of the company's databases, data stores, email and messaging applications, as well as the SaaS platforms they use, and even generative AI chatbots like Microsoft Copilot. Once everything is linked together, Concentric's AI algorithms get to work, seeking out sensitive data such as passwords, private files, audio and video recordings of meetings and anything else of concern to security teams. Having identified any data of concern, Concentric then provides recommendations to users on how they can better secure that information and ensure adherence to compliance standards. The tool can also trace data lineage, showing where a file originally came from and how it's being used in the organization. To ensure it doesn't accidentally expose its customer's data itself, Concentric makes sure that it doesn't move any information from where it's supposed to be. Instead, it creates semantic representations of the data it catalogs. So companies can trust that it doesn't store any of their sensitive information. The company claims that this kind of preventative data cataloging is one of the most effective strategies for cybersecurity. It points to IBM Corp.'s 2021 Cost of Data Breach report, which found that companies who adopt automated security tools are able to reduce the costs of a data breach by up to 84.4%. Concentric co-founder and Chief Executive Karthik Krishnan said the company has enjoyed 300% year-over-year growth and has tripled customer count in less than six months, thanks to the rapid adoption of generative AI tools like Microsoft Corp.'s Copilots. With today's funding, the startup will look to expand its go-to-market strategies and speed up the development of its product. "Operationalizing data security remains a huge challenge for enterprises and Concentric AI has now demonstrated across diverse verticals and companies of all sizes that its Semantic Intelligence solution helps enterprises easily discover, monitor and protect their most sensitive business critical data," he said.

Concentric helps companies keep track of their sensitive data | TechCrunch

Enterprises have a data inventory problem. The amount of data they're collecting and storing is increasing, and that data is being spread across disparate storage buckets. Yet many organizations rely on processes that essentially amount to pencil-and-paper methods for tracking data provenance. According to one survey, more than 50% of companies use Excel spreadsheets in their data privacy and compliance efforts. Karthik Krishnan, Shankar Subramaniam, and Madhu Shashanka thought they might have the engineering chops to build something to make this easier for companies. The trio had cut their teeth in cybersecurity: Years ago, Subramaniam and Shashanka had recruited Krishnan as one of the first employees at their behavioral analytics startup, Niara. A few years after Hewlett Packard acquired Niara, the trio began sketching out ideas for an enterprise data management tool. They envisioned a product that could catalog a company's critical data -- including information stored in infrequently-accessed places -- and automatically flag any data that's at risk of compromise. "We hoped to solve one of the most pressing data security challenges facing the modern enterprise," Krishnan told TechCrunch. "That is: identifying and securing business-critical information within structured and unstructured data, stored on-premises or in the cloud, at scale." The trio built an MVP and founded a company, Concentric AI, to further develop and commercialize it. Today, Concentric has customers in industrial manufacturing, insurance, and higher education, including car insurance carrier Hagerty and DeVry University. Krishnan explained how the tech works. First, a customer links Concentric to its databases, data stores, email and messaging apps, and even generative AI chatbots such as Microsoft Copilot. Then, Concentric uses AI to find sensitive data like passwords, private files, audio and video recordings of meetings in those linked places. Concentric then gives the customer recommendations on ways to better secure its data and adhere to compliance standards. It can also trace lineage, showing where a certain piece of data came from and how it's being used. "Operationalizing data security is a huge challenge," Krishnan said. "With Concentric, customers can identify anomalous activity and remediate those issues to prevent data loss." But doesn't monitoring all this company data present a huge security risk? What if Concentric gets hacked, or what if hackers try to intercept the data flowing between apps and Concentric's platform? Krishnan told me that Concentric doesn't deal with raw data; instead, it creates semantic representations of the data and data categories. "Concentric AI products do not store sensitive user data," he said. Concentric isn't alone in the data protection market, which could be worth over $500 billion by 2032, according to one estimate. The startup competes with Varonis, BigID, Netwrix, Spirion, Cyera, and Securiti, among other vendors. Still, Krishnan said that Concentric's client base is growing at a healthy clip: it has grown by 300% from a year earlier. The continued burgeoning of the data organizations have to wrangle is no doubt contributing to the boom. In a Matillion poll, data professionals said that their company's data volumes are growing by 63% per month on average. "There's an unprecedented demand for data security posture management globally," Krishnan said. San Meteo-based Concentric recently closed a $45 million Series B round co-led by Top Tier Capital Partners and HarbourVest, with participation from CyberFuture, Ballistic Ventures, Citi Ventures, Engineering Capital and Clear Ventures. The new round brings the company's total capital raised to $67 million, and the fresh cash will be used to expand Concentric's partner program and product portfolio as well as increase the company's headcount to 125 people by 2025.