A growing cybersecurity company has raised 拢1.6 million to expand its client base and scale its operations as demand grows for support managing tech defences.聽
Manchester-based Cytix has raised the money in a round co-led by the NPIF II 鈥� Praetura Equity Finance, which is managed by Praetura Ventures and is part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II.
The business presents an alternative approach to annual penetration testing. Cytix enables companies to identify high risk vulnerabilities during code development, resulting in vulnerabilities being caught much earlier than traditional security testing options.
According to Cytix, many automated testing solutions miss about 20% of vulnerabilities that can only be found via manual testing methods, which often leaves businesses waiting up to a year for them to be uncovered with a traditional penetration test.
The cybersecurity specialist remedies this by analysing every development change a business makes in real-time, predicting potential security flaws and orchestrating immediate testing instead of ad-hoc reviews.
Cytix鈥檚 customers span multiple sectors and include the stablecoin FinTech BNVK, medical clinical trials experts Protas and the bot prevention company Netacea as well as Cambridge University鈥檚 research and publishing arm, Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
The business plans to use the funding to double its client base within the next 12 months and further develop its product offering for the enterprise market, with plans to target the banking sector, financial services and fast-growing software businesses.
Founded in 2022 by Ben Armstrong, Thomas Ballin and Matt Milan, the business is one of the latest companies to be funded by the British 老九品茶 Bank鈥檚 拢660m NPIF II fund, with French VC Auriga and Cytix鈥檚 existing funder SFC Capital also investing.
鈥淎utomated scanning technologies have transformed the way we identify and remediate most vulnerabilities,鈥� said CEO Armstrong. 鈥淗owever, companies still need to rely on manual penetration testing for certain classes of vulnerability that automated tools can鈥檛 detect.聽
鈥淭his area of the market has remained largely a stagnant and annual process, meaning a proportion of vulnerabilities are left to be detected just once a year. Cytix is here to change that using the latest AI models to bring all testing forward and create targeted testing at scale.
鈥淥ur latest funding round enables us to expand our existing A star team to tackle the problem and achieve our goal of bringing security testing up to speed with modern development. More and more companies are prioritising fast and safe development and Cytix is the perfect security testing partner to help them achieve that.鈥�
Michael Rees, investment manager at Praetura Ventures, said: 鈥淭he North West is rich with innovative cybersecurity companies doing transformational work to protect businesses in all sectors. Now Cytix is pioneering a new form of penetration testing that improves results for clients, providing the business with a perfect platform for growth.聽
鈥淲ith funding from NPIF II, and more than money from Praetura, Cytix has the resources it needs to continue its exciting growth trajectory and scaling journey from its base here in Manchester.鈥�