Bolster, a leader in multi-channel phishing protection, has announced the successful closure of a $14m Series B financing round.
The funding round was led by M12, Microsoft’s venture fund, with additional support from existing investors including Thomvest Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Liberty Global Ventures, Cheyenne Ventures, Cervin Ventures, and Transform Capital. This latest investment brings Bolster’s total funding to over $40m.
Founded in 2017, Bolster is dedicated to defending against phishing and impersonation attacks across a variety of digital business channels. The company utilises advanced AI and machine learning models trained on extensive datasets to detect and eliminate threats. Bolster’s platform supports over 120 customers, which include some of the world’s most well-known brands, by targeting phishing and impersonation attempts on websites, mobile applications, social media, and messaging tools.
The new funds will be utilised to accelerate Bolster’s go-to-market strategies and technology integrations, particularly focusing on generative AI for threat protection. Key areas of investment include executive monitoring, business email compromise (BEC) attack detection and takedown, and threat-hunting automation. The sales organisation will be structured around these priorities, supported by comprehensive training and marketing initiatives to increase market penetration and enhance customer engagement.
Bolster’s innovative approach has been demonstrated through the creation of CheckPhish, one of the most popular phishing and scam detection sites on the internet. Since its inception in 2018, the platform has garnered users from over 20% of the Fortune 500, leveraging its vast data to continually improve Bolster’s AI capabilities.
Todd Graham, managing partner at M12, said, “Having observed the email security landscape for over twenty years, it’s evident that traditional methods are failing to keep pace. The advent of generative AI in the arsenal of cyber attackers signals a troubling escalation in the severity of business email compromise and phishing threats. Monitoring Bolster’s journey from its early days, I am thoroughly impressed by their innovative application of AI to proactively identify and neutralize fraudulent activities by targeting the very infrastructure of these attacks.”
Bolster’s co-founder and CTO, Shashi Prakash, said, “Bolster is committed to leading the industry in leveraging generative AI for real-time detection and response to phishing and impersonation attacks. This issue impacts nearly all businesses today. This investment validates our technology and accelerates our platform development and go-to-market initiatives.”
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