Cybersecurity startup VisibleRisk Inc. today disclosed that it has raised $25 million in funding to drive the adoption of its newly launched software platform, which enables companies to evaluate if their breach prevention efforts are effective. 

The financing was provided by Moody’s Corp. and Team8 Labs Ltd. Moody’s is one of the financial sector’s three major credit rating agencies, while Team8 is a Tel Aviv-based venture studio that builds cybersecurity startups and counts tech giants such as Microsoft Corp. among its investors. Team8 launched VisibleRisk as a joint venture with Moody’s in 2019.

New York-based VisibleRisk’s software platform, also announced today, helps enterprises assess how vulnerable they are to hacking campaigns. The platform collects a mix of business and technical data points about a company, then analyzes that information to rate how well the company is prepared against breach attempts. VisibleRisk also produces an estimate of what financial losses an organization could experience in the event of a breach.

The startup says that the assessments produced by its platform have several uses. Chief Financial Officers can consult VisibleRisk’s estimates about the potential financial cost of a breach to help them decide whether the cybersecurity budget needs to be increased. Board members and the Chief Executive Officer, in turn, can use the platform to compare how their company’s network protection program compares with those of industry peers.

In addition to pointing out if there’s room for improvement, VisibleRisk says its software helps enterprises find specific ways to enhance their cybersecurity. The startup’s platform provides tools that make it possible to simulate changes to cybersecurity operations and see whether they would reduce a company’s attack risk. 

Under the hood, VisibleRisk uses several types of data to generate assessments. The startup says that the platform takes into account the strength of companies’ network protection controls and, at the same time, collects data about online hacker activity to identify what threats an organization may be facing. To estimate the financial impact of breaches, the platform analyzes details such as what cybersecurity insurance policy a company has bought. 

VisibleRisk is launching its product into a crowded market. SecurityScorecard Inc., a startup that helps companies assess the attack surface of their technology systems and those of their partners, closed a funding round of its own in March. BitSight Inc. and UpGuard Inc. are two other venture-backed startups competing in this market. The robust competition, and continued investor interest, in cybersecurity risk analytics startups is likely a sign that there’s strong demand for the technology among enterprises. 

The growing focus in the enterprise on mitigating hacking-related risks is also fueling demand for other types of products. Companies are increasingly signing up for cyber insurance packages that can help them absorb the costs of a potential future breach. It’s a trend that has even caught the attention of Google LLC, which this year teamed up with Allianz SE’s corporate insurance unit and Munich Re Group to launch a cyber insurance offering for large Google Cloud customers. 

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