Q4 2019

22 US BUSINESS NEWS / Q4 2019 , US and Israel-based cybersecurity com- pany Sepio Systems, has raised a $6.5 million in Series A funding round led by Hanaco Ven- tures and Merlin Ventures, with the participation of existing investors Energias de Portugal (EDP), Mind- set Ventures and Pico Partners. Since its establishment Sepio Systems has raised $11 million. In conjunction with the financing, Sepio also announced the ap- pointment of two new executives to its management team: Gili Sahar joins as Chief Financial Officer and Chen Ben Eliyahu takes as Vice President of Busi- ness Development. Sepio offers the world’s first end- to-end solution that detects and mitigates hardware-based attacks, rogue peripherals, invisible network devices, and manipulated firmware. The company’s Sepio Prime, which is a software-only solution, has been successfully deployed in over 25 banks, insur- ance, and telecom companies in the U.S., Singapore, Brazil, South Africa and Israel. Rogue device cyber-attacks are rapidly growing as demonstrated by CNBC’s recent report on ATM at- tacks and the serious data breach in NASA, whose Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was hacked through the use of an unauthorized Raspberry Pi Computer. “The increasing number of hard- ware based cyber-attacks is a major concern to all enterprises. While all other security solutions are focused on software threats, Combing Forces Rogue device mitigation start-up, Sepio Systems completes $6.5M series A round led by Hanaco Ventures andMerlin Ventures. they are incapable of stopping threats coming from hard- ware”, said Yossi Appelboum, co-founder and CEO of Sepio Systems, Inc. “Sepio defines and solves a problem most enterprises know they have but cannot quantify or resolve,” explains Alon Lifshitz Founding Partner at Hanaco Ven- tures. “Besides creating the Rogue Device Mitigation category, it’s rare as an investor to back founders that have worked as a team for over twenty years now building their third start-up together.” “Partnering with Hanaco and Mer- lin and the continuous support from our existing investors high- lights the industry reception to our solution. This major investment allows us to grow faster, increas- ing marketing and sales activities and engineering resources.”, added Mr. Appleboum. Merlin’s partnership with Sepio includes bringing its Rogue Device Mitigation solution to market in the US Federal space. “As soon as we saw Sepio, we realized it was filling a critical gap in supply chain security by extending network visibility down to the physical layer. Our model is to invest in differentiated cybersecurity technology that we can bring to market to solve our customers’ most difficult chal- lenges, and we see Sepio as the perfect fit.”, added David Phelps, Chairman and CEO of Merlin. As part of its expansion, Sepio is opening a new office in Mclean, Virginia for supporting the US federal customers.