Ermes Cyber Security, the only Italian company selected by Gartner in the top 100 organisations that exploit artificial intelligence to detect and defend against increasingly aggressive cyber attacks on corporate security, has already closed the first tranche of a Series A investment round, raising €3 million. Lead investor of the capital increase was Sinergia Venture Fund, while the official closing of the round with additional funds and new investors is expected by the end of the year.
The new corporate structure with the transformation into a joint-stock company will serve to strengthen Ermes Cyber Security's project on an international level, together with the new resources gathered. Significant investments will be made in the cyber product and research, which has always been the hallmark of this multi-award-winning company, as well as in communication and marketing, in order to achieve an increasingly relevant European and international positioning.
After the closing of a funding round worth €1 million in 2021, the total raised by the scale-up thus rises to over €4.5 million, pending the official closing and the entry of other investors in the Series A round by December 2023. The new board of directors will be composed of Hassan Metwalley, the company's Founder and CEO, Simone Cremonini for Sinergia Venture Fund and Remo Ricci, a top manager with relevant experience in the international ICT field, who has been appointed as the new chairman of the board.
"In a world where the web has become an essential part of our personal and working lives, protecting our browsing, data and privacy is of paramount importance," said Hassan Metwalley, Founder & CEO of Ermes Cyber Security. "Ermes strives every day to provide businesses and individuals with the tools they need to work and live securely, defending them from cyber attacks such as phishing, credential theft or fraud that are increasingly advanced and targeted. Our goal is to make Ermes a successful example in the IT and software sector, demonstrating how it is possible to realise great projects starting from Italy and offering talents the opportunity to contribute to ambitious and global initiatives, choosing to stay or move to our country."
"All companies, and more so medium and large enterprises, today face more and more challenges to their business related to cybersecurity, understood in a 360-degree sense, including threats such as phishing, ransomware and other threats associated with web browsing by their employees," commented Simone Cremonini, Managing Partner of Sinergia Venture Fund. "They need to protect their sensitive data, intellectual property, the systems they use to manage sales, customers, production, and prevent malware attacks and online fraud. These challenges make the cybersecurity sector as one of the most interesting for us as investors, and in Ermes Cybersecurity we have found the Italian company with the best product available to address and solve the threats inherent in users' web browsing, combined with an outstanding team of talent."
"Ermes Cyber Security adds to our fund's scale-up portfolio and confirms, for the potential this company expresses, our strategy focused on B2B scale-ups with strong growth potential in Italy and abroad," said Giacomo Picchetto, Managing Partner of Sinergia Venture Fund.
Ermes Cyber Security was born from an idea of Hassan Metwalley within the incubator I3P of Politecnico di Torino in 2018 and, thanks to its innovative architecture and its patented AI algorithms, today offers dynamic protection against browser threats based on the real behaviour of a site, thus guaranteeing an overall real-time protection of 99% on the web. Winner of the Italian Master Startup Award (IMSA) 2022, today Ermes is also the only Italian company to have received the FIC 2022 Startup Award, linked to the world of cybersecurity, in addition to a whole series of international recognitions. The diversified solutions designed by Ermes protect more than 30,000 users on their browsers and place it among the world leaders in web security.
"We are very pleased with this further confirmation of the important development path of Ermes Cyber Security," commented Giuseppe Scellato, President of I3P. "A spin-off of Politecnico di Torino and a young company that grew up in I3P, Ermes represents a case of excellence in the valorisation of research results in a strategic sector of great value for the Italian industrial system."
Ermes' technology has been chosen by KPMG, Carrefour, Reale Mutua, Bonelli Erede, Sol Group and distributed by TD Synnex, Attiva Evolution and Icos to more than 50 partners in 4 different continents.