Irish-founded cybersecurity firm raises £5.5m in first funding round

AN Irish-founded cybersecurity startup has raised £5.5m in its first funding round.

Bristol-based OnSecurity is developing software which allows its users to test and find security issues in their systems that would leave them vulnerable to hackers.

Specialising in penetration testing – or pentesting – the company has now received its first round of equity investment since it launched in 2018.

Gresham House Ventures has invested £5.5m into the firm, which states it will use the cash to “accelerate its growth”.

“I’m super proud of what the OnSecurity team has achieved as a bootstrapped business to date,” OnSecurity Co-founder and CEO Conor O’Neill said.

OnSecufrity founder Conor O’Neill

“With no funding, we’ve grown a multi-million turnover business, with almost 300 customers, and we’ve developed a truly powerful piece of technology in the OnSecurity platform, which makes booking and managing pentests as simple as possible,” the native of Leixlip, in Co. Kildare added.

“However, we thought the time was right to really accelerate our growth by taking a funding round – and from our first conversations with Ben and the team at Gresham House Ventures, they were our preferred investors,” he explained.

“Every conversation we have with them is of high value, and they’re also a really nice bunch of people to work with, which is very important to us.

“I’m excited to go on this journey with them over the next few years as we grow into one of the dominant players in the pentest market”.

O’Neill’s firm intends to become the world’s leading pentest engagement platform.

It currently boasts almost 300 customers and it has completed over 5,000 pentests for its clients.

With the support of Gresham House’s investment, the firm plans to expand from 35 to 70 employees over the next few years.

“OnSecurity has built a robust and differentiated platform offering in a market that has historically been plagued with manual processes and poor customer experience,” Steve Carle, GHV Operating Partner at Gresham House Ventures, said.

“We believe the business is well placed to expand its client base further over the coming years and support businesses and organisations worldwide in the face of new cybersecurity challenges.”

He added: “We look forward to working closely with Conor, Grace and the OnSecurity team over the coming years to bring OnSecurity’s innovative solutions to a wider market.”