Just as we thought we had seen the height of the Israeli startups fundraising game, comes a record-breaking round rarely witnessed even in the global startup scene. Israeli startup Transmit Security announced a whopping $543 million in Series A funding. The startup, which was founded by serial entrepreneur Mickey Boodaei, who also founded Imperva and Trusteer, didn’t just enter the Unicorn club but broke down the doors and went straight to the VIP section with a post money valuation of $2.2 billion.
Transmit’s Series A marks the most ever capital raised by an Israeli startup in a single round, but also shatters the global cyber record for startup funding.
No outside funding
Transmit Security is not a new company, despite this being the startup’s first meaningful investment. First emerging in 2014, the company has since been bootstrapped, other than an investment from the founders, Mickey Boodaei and Rakesh Loonkar, which was paid back years ago.
Transmit Security wants to erase usernames and passwords from our vocabulary, by enabling everyone through their phones to identify via biometric indicators, such as by fingerprint or facial scan. Unlike solutions currently used in smartphones, Transmit is looking to turn your smartphone into a key that unlocks all of your other devices and access to websites, even if they lack biometric authentication capabilities, like laptops, services, and more.
“We built the company to provide a dual sided solution,” explains CEO and co-founder, Mickey Boodeai, in an interview with Geektime. “First of all, from the end user’s side. The goal is to provide them with the most amazing experience at every point. On the organizational end, we aim to get rid of the complications… There are many indicators that we monitor, through which we can identify a level of connectivity between the users, devices, browsers, apps, and essentially rekindle our service’s trust in the biometrics of the user. Allowing them to use their mobile phone to transfer that trust to other devices and interfaces,” he adds.
Boodeai explains that using the Transmit solution requires customers to take on one API, with the Israeli cyber firm assuming the rest of the identification responsibilities. The startup’s service encompasses everything from user authentication to regulations and analysis. The user doesn’t need to install additional applications in order to identify themselves. “We want to provide a unified experience across different devices, and never through passwords,” he concludes.
The super mega-round was led by Insight Partners and General Atlantic, with additional investment from Cyberstarts, Geodesic, SYN Ventures, Vintage, and Artisanal Ventures. The company currently has 200 employees, with 110 of them based at the Israeli R&D center and the rest split between offices in the U.S., the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, and Germany. According to the company 6 out of 7 of the biggest financial institutions in the U.S.A -- such as UBS and Santander -- along with major retailers and global brands can be counted among the company’s trove of customers.
Transmit Security was founded by CEO Mickey Boodeai and President Rakesh Loonkar. The duo were the founders of security company Trusteer, which was acquired by IBM in 2013 for nearly $1 billion. Boodeai was also part of the trio that founded Israeli cyber firm, Imperva, along with Shlomo Kramer and Amichai Shulman. With a cyber scale-up resume like those, no wonder Transmit has arrived to where it is today.
