It’s always a thrill to see a CyRise portfolio company go from strength to strength. Today we’re celebrating Aiculus, who has raised AUD $940,000 in seed funding from Cocoon Capital of Singapore and an angel investor.
The Aiculus platform screens inbound API traffic without contravening data privacy, helping organisations detect sophisticated attacks, which can cost companies in excess of $2 million. With current pilots at large corporate companies in Australia and Singapore, including an ASX-listed bank and a top Singaporean finance company, this funding comes at a perfect time for their expansion
Aiculus founder and CEO, Dr Omaru Maruatona, was part of the first CyRise intake in 2017.
CyRise CEO, Scott Handsaker, says “We witnessed the beginnings of Aiculus and this fundraise is a fantastic endorsement of its potential. Tenacity is a key attribute for successful founders and Omaru has amply demonstrated this quality with his journey at Aiculus. As Aiculus expands to Singapore and SouthEast Asia, we know this is a winner.”
Omaru says “CyRise believed in us from the start. The encouragement, and the networks, contacts and learnings CyRise gave us, was an incredible boost to Aiculus.”
Aiculus has hit the market at the right time, as usage of APIs are skyrocketing with the global work-from-home trends emerging from the pandemic, as well as the growing acceptance of Open Banking. The global API market is growing at 30% annually. The adoption of API technology by organisations globally has increased four times since 2015.
Will Klippgen, Managing Partner at Cocoon Capital says “Aiculus is addressing a key need for financial services to secure their data and services while adapting to a more open financial infrastructure. Attacks on financial institutions also threaten national security. We at Cocoon are looking very much forward to an exciting journey to bring their solutions to global customers”.
With this round, Aiculus are looking to scale their product and further refine the product’s flexible deployment. The funding will also allow Aiculus to grow the team in Singapore and build capacity to expand the product coverage across South East Asia.
