Companies have an information inventory problem. The amount of knowledge they collect and store is increasing and this data is distributed across different storage areas. Yet many corporations depend on processes that essentially boil right down to pencil-and-paper methods when tracking data lineage. According to at least one Opinion pollMore than 50% of corporations use Excel spreadsheets for his or her data protection and compliance efforts.
Karthik Krishnan, Shankar Subramaniam and Madhu Shashanka thought they may have the technical skills to construct something to make this easier for corporations. The trio had made a reputation for themselves in the sector of cybersecurity: years ago, Subramaniam and Shashanka recruited Krishnan as certainly one of the primary employees for his or her behavior evaluation startup Niara.
A couple of years after Niara was acquired by Hewlett Packard, the trio began brainstorming ideas for an enterprise data management tool. They envisioned a product that would catalog an organization's critical data — including information stored in locations which are rarely accessed — and mechanically flag any data prone to compromise.
“We hoped to resolve probably the most pressing data security challenges facing modern businesses,” Krishnan told TechCrunch. “That means identifying and securing business-critical information at scale in structured and unstructured data stored on-premises or within the cloud.”
The trio built an MVP and founded Concentric AI to further develop and commercialize it. Today, Concentric has customers in industrial manufacturing, insurance and better education, including auto insurance carrier Hagerty and DeVry University.
Krishnan explained how the technology works.
First, a customer connects Concentric to their databases, data stores, email and messaging apps, and even generative AI chatbots like Microsoft Copilot. Concentric then uses AI to search out sensitive data resembling passwords, private files, and audio and video recordings of meetings in these linked locations.
Concentric then provides the shopper with recommendations on easy methods to higher secure their data and meet compliance standards. It can even trace lineage, showing where a specific piece of knowledge comes from and the way it’s used.
“Operationalizing data security is a big challenge,” said Krishnan. “With Concentric, customers can detect anomalous activity and remediate those issues to stop data loss.”
But doesn't monitoring all this company data pose a significant security risk? What happens if Concentric is hacked or if hackers attempt to intercept the flow of knowledge between apps and Concentric's platform?
Krishnan told me that Concentric doesn't work with raw data; Instead, semantic representations of the information and data categories are created. “Concentric AI products don’t store sensitive user data,” he said.
Concentric is just not alone in the information protection market, which could possibly be value over $500 billion by 2032. after to an estimate. The startup competes with Varonis, BigID, Netwrix, Spirion, Cyera and Securiti, amongst others.
Still, Krishnan said Concentric's customer base is growing strongly: It's up 300% year-over-year.
The continued increase in data that corporations need to cope with is undoubtedly contributing to the boom. In a matillion Opinion pollData experts reported that their organization's data volumes are growing at a mean rate of 63% per thirty days.
“There is an unprecedented need for data security management worldwide,” said Krishnan.
San Mateo-based Concentric recently closed a $45 million Series B round co-led by Top Tier Capital Partners and HarbourVest and including CyberFuture, Ballistic Ventures, Citi Ventures, Engineering Capital and Clear Ventures. The latest round brings the corporate's total capital raised to $67 million. The fresh money can be used to expand Concentric's partner program and product portfolio and to extend the corporate's workforce to 125 people by 2025.
