Entrepreneurs Al Yang and Adar Arnon met at Harvard Business School and quickly realized they had a common interest: cybersecurity.
“We have witnessed a changing business climate that has resulted in an unprecedented need for improved security processes,” Arnon told TechCrunch. “The importance of security has increased exponentially… [it’s] non-negotiable for technology buyers.
Yang and Arnon decided to turn this interest into something more, so they launched SafeBase, which was accepted into Y Combinator’s accelerator program during the pandemic.
SafeBase announced Tuesday that it has raised $33 million in a Series B funding round led by Touring Capital. The company helps its customers complete security questionnaires, which are reviews that organizations normally initiate before purchasing new software. It’s a question of governance and compliance.
Security questionnaires can be tedious and take weeks or even months for more complex software. But Arnon argues that SafeBase can save time through automation and AI.
SafeBase uses AI models “specifically trained for security documentation use cases” to read, interpret security information and questions, and then automatically respond to security questionnaires. “[Our platform] simplifies the tedious security review process by empowering security, governance, risk, compliance and revenue teams,” he said.
Image credits: Safe base
Being cynical about AI, I asked Arnon about the accuracy of these models; AI is a notorious liar, after all. He claimed it was superior thanks to a “mixture of large and small language models” that provide “greater response coverage.” [and]”Take that as you will.
Beyond custom templates, SafeBase provides an engine that allows an enterprise to assign “rules-based behavior” for customer access, as well as dashboards that display posture insights and analytics company security.
SafeBase isn’t the only vendor offering tools to automate security quizzes and reviews. Rivals include Conveyorwhich recently raised $12.5 million; content; And Quiltwhich claims to be able to also automate due diligence reviews in addition to security reviews.
Arnon didn’t seem too worried. This may be due to SafeBase’s customer list of 700 companies, including Palantir, LinkedIn, Asana and Instacart.
“SafeBase has seen massive growth over the past two years,” Arnon said. “Customers love the product and adoption continues to accelerate. The company benefits from increased visibility across its entire supplier network as more high-volume customers launch Trust Centers which replace the need for tens of thousands of manual security reviews.”
SafeBase, based in San Francisco, has 55 employees.
The company’s Series B round benefited from participation from strategic investor Zoom Ventures (Zoom’s corporate venture arm), NEA, Y Combinator, Comcast Ventures and Cerca Partners as well as angel investors, including…
