ThetaRay Notches $30M In Funding

Cybersecurity firm ThetaRay has notched more than $30 million in a funding round, bringing its total fundraising to over $60 million. The company counts Bank Hapoalim, Jerusalem Venture Partners, General Electric, OurCrowd and SVB as investors, Reuters reported.

The company, which offers early cyber threat detection through artificial intelligence and machine learning, plans to use the funds to grow in Asia, Europe and the U.S. In addition, the company plans to expand its workforce in order to meet demand for solutions that combat money laundering and financial crimes.

The news comes almost two years after ThetaRay released predictions for banking security in 2017. Those included the proliferation of fraud rings, regulatory pressures increasing on banks and the need for banks to address the issue of de-risking under anti-money laundering regulations.

“Because of these challenges, it seems that financial institutions will be busy focusing on little more than internal issues — compliance, security and the bottom line — leaving little room for new customer-facing initiatives that could improve the experience,” CEO Mark Gazit had written.

And a recent survey showed that cybersecurity is the biggest worry for companies, especially since few of them feel prepared to handle an attack. Conducted by Microsoft and Marsh, the survey found that when 1,300 senior executives were polled, two-thirds ranked cybersecurity among their organizations’ top five risk management priorities, with 75 percent saying that the business interruption caused by a hack would have the greatest impact on their organizations.

But while companies fear the impact of a cyberattack, only 19 percent are highly confident in their organization’s ability to prevent and respond to a hack. In fact, only 30 percent have developed a plan to respond to a cyberattack. Companies aren’t doing much better when it comes to risk quantification: Fewer than 50 percent said their organization estimates financial losses from a potential cyberattack.