Artificial intelligence-powered zero-trust data security and privacy automation startup LightBeam.ai Inc. today announced that it has raised $17.8 million in new funding to expand its go-to-market initiatives and continue investing in its platform.

Founded in 2020, LightBeam offers a platform aimed at streamlining and converging data security, privacy and governance. It’s designed to assist businesses in accelerating their growth in new markets quickly and confidently.

LightBeam argues that today’s data economy necessitates employees having access to a wide variety of company and user data to improve their decision-making, creating massive data exposure challenges. Likewise, modern AI solutions often use company and user data to train themselves, further exacerbating privacy and data security concerns. A zero-trust approach to data encapsulates a unified and consistent approach to data inventory, classification and access – helping organizations maintain the complete provenance of their data.

“In the era of generative AI breakthroughs, organizations are empowered to unlock valuable insights from customer data,” said co-founder and Chief Executice Himanshu Shukla. “However, this advancement poses the crucial challenge of ensuring secure and compliant handling of customer data within the evolving landscape of AI governance and privacy regulations.”

Shukla said LightBeam differs from other providers through its capability to automate security and compliance workflows, providing a frictionless experience for sensitive data governance.

The company says it has seen solid growth, with a 300% increase in its customer base over the last year, off an undisclosed base. It includes businesses in banking, financial services, insurance, healthcare, tech and retail. Notable customers include Snap Finance Inc., Roost Labs Inc., RiskOptics, Horizon Clinical Research Services Inc. and MonetizeNow Inc.

Vertex Ventures US LLC led the Series A round, with Dropbox Ventures, 8VC (Eight Partners LLC) and Village Global Inc. also participating. “The combination of LightBeam’s integrated platform, their AI-powered data discovery tools and their ability to ingest and classify both structured and unstructured data uniquely positions them to be a leader in the data governance space,” said Donald Tucker, head of corporate development and ventures at Dropbox.

Including the new funding, LightBeam has raised $22.3 million to date, according to data from Tracxn.

Image: LightBeam.ai