Ayala Corporation’s ACTIVE Fund joins investors to secure $26million for SlashNext Series B funding 

ACTIVE Fund, the largest venture capital fund to come out of the Philippines, has joined a team of investors to secure $26 million in Series B venture capital funding for SlashNext, the leader in SaaS-based spear-phishing and human hacking defense across digital channels and apps.  The amount will accelerate the company’s mission to protect the world’s 4B Internet users from all forms of phishing – the number one, multi-billion-dollar cybersecurity threat to organisations and consumers.

 With new investors the ACTIVE Fund of the Ayala group as advised by Kickstart Ventures, G3 Enterprises, Telia Group, and participation from early investors Norwest, Wing, and Alter Ventures, the round brings SlashNext’s total funding to $43 million.

Ninety-one percent of all successful cyber breaches start with spear-phishing – including ransomware, data theft, and over $30B of financial fraud.¹ Further, NTT’s recent Global Threat Intelligence Report for August showed that 3-4% of malware detected is ransomware, translating to hundreds of thousands of attacks.² Since January this year, attacks have increased at least 50%, and continue to rise. They predicted a likely 300% growth in ransomware, which could equate to US$20 billion in damages.

In Southeast Asia, cybercrimes are increasing on Tor darknet, including fake passports, fake currencies, stolen credit card and personal identification information, drugs, and cybercrime toolkits.³ There have also been cyberespionage attacks against government entities in Myanmar and the Philippines since at least October 2020 through spear-phishing emails containing a malicious Word document.⁴

SlashNext’s patented cloud and on-device AI goes beyond email protection and stops spear-phishing, social engineering, and other targeted human threats across popular communication channels and collaboration apps. 

With its pinpoint accuracy and 48-hour time to detection advantage, only SlashNext protects organisations from these malicious user threats launched from legitimate, trusted sites that easily evade current SEG, proxy, SASE, and endpoint security tools.

“When cybercriminals launch successful spear-phishing attacks, the results are massively disruptive to people, organisations, and the economy,” said SlashNext CEO Patrick Harr. “This is the number one cyber challenge that organisations and individuals globally face, and bad actors are only increasing their attacks and becoming more sophisticated at taking advantage of the most vulnerable part of organisations – its people. Our mission is to protect our customers from these threats, and this new funding will enable us to scale and innovate faster so that we can help customers outpace the risk.”

SlashNext has experienced significant growth over the last 12 months since its 360 Phishing Defense-as-a-service launch with adoption in. With pinpoint accuracy and 48-hour time to detection advantage, SlashNext is delivering the best-in-class AI cloud and on-device protection, stopping spear phishing, social engineering, and other targeted human threats across popular communication channels and collaboration apps to SEA.

With the new investment, SlashNext will scale its customer acquisition and operations domestically and internationally. As well as drive key distribution partnerships with MSSP, embedded OEMs, and carriers, including its new strategic investors, Telia Telecom in Europe and Globe Telecom in APAC, which represents over 40M mobile subscribers. SlashNext will further its lead in AI cloud and on-device multi-channel and multi-language detection of all forms of targeted phishing – SMiShing, Vishing, BEC, bank fraud, scams, rogue browsers, credential stealing, ransomware, social engineering, and other malicious digital user attacks – launched from legitimate hosted sites or received from trusted supply chain vendors. 

“Unlike in the past, where cybersecurity breaches mainly focused on email through business devices, attacks now occur on different applications installed on endpoint devices like mobile phones and tablets, which can be personal and less protected,” said Kickstart Ventures President Minette Navarrete. “The ACTIVE Fund investment in SlashNext recognises the evolving nature of communication for work and life – data-driven and digital, collaborative, and accessible anywhere, any time, and on any device. SlashNext’s superior technology will fortify enterprises’ defenses, allowing them to operate with speed, scale, and security, protecting both their customers and their shareholders. We’re keen to support SlashNext’s mission in tackling this global issue.”

Liked this post? Follow SwirlingOverCoffee on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.