Israeli smart car company Karamba Security has completed a $12 million Series B financing round. This brings the total investment in the company to $17 million, 15 months after closing a seed round in March 2016. Existing investors YL Ventures and Fontinalis Partners led the round, followed by GlenRock Israel, with new strategic investments from Paladin Capital Group, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, Presidio Ventures, and Asgent Inc. For Paladin Capital and Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, as well as for existing investor Fontinalis Partners, Karamba Security is their first investment in an Israeli corporation.
Entrepreneurs Ami Dotan (CEO), Tal Ben David (VP R&D), David Barzilai (executive chairman), and Asaf Harel (CTO) founded Karamba, which has offices in Hod Hasharon and Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company, which provides cybersecurity solutions for connected and autonomous vehicles and has benefited from the buzz about driverless cars, has 20 employees,13 of them in Israel. The investment will be used to expand customer support, sales and R&D organizations so that it can meet the rapidly growing demand.
Karamba Security has introduced prevention software that seamlessly protects the car, based on its factory settings, and blocks hacking attempts as they deviate from the car’s factory settings. This deterministic approach ensures consumer safety by preventing the attack before hackers succeed to infiltrate the car and do harm.
“What we found compelling from the start was that Karamba Security solved this industry-wide problem and eliminated the risk of false positives,” said Yoav Leitersdorf, managing partner of YL Ventures and a board member at Karamba Security. “As a result, it has shifted the automotive security paradigm from detection to prevention.”
“Until Karamba, there were no preventive solutions with zero false positives, and many questioned whether it was even achievable,” added Chris Thomas, a founder and partner at Fontinalis Partners who also sits on Karamba’s board. “Now that the industry and investors are aware that prevention is attainable, they are choosing Karamba, and in doing so, they are enabling safer outcomes.”
"Prevention is key. Our technology makes sure that only what's part of the factory settings can run," said Ami Dotan, Karamba's co-founder and CEO. "Once the system recognizes foreign code, or an in-memory attack, it prevents it from executing. Our deterministic approach stands in sharp contrast to network-based solutions that rely on probabilities to try to identify attacks in progress and block them - an after-the-fact technique that creates safety risks."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 16, 2017
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