Security decoy startup CounterCraft closes $5M Series A

Spain-based CounterCraft, which builds b2b tools for gathering counterintelligence on evolving security threats, has closed a $5M Series A. The all cash round is led by Adara Ventures, with eCAPITAL and Red Eléctrica Group joining as new investors, and with participation from existing backers including Evolution Equity, ORZA, and Wayra.

CounterCraft was founded back in 2015 with the aim of helping security chiefs take a more proactive defense stance. The founders went through Telefonica’s Wayra Madrid accelerator — and went on to raise a $1.1M seed round, back in 2016.

While its early focus was on the European market, the startup has expanded to serve clients across Western Europe and North America — with particular focus on national defense and intelligence departments, major financial institutions, and large enterprises.

We understand they have 20 customers at this stage. The new funding will be used to build out CounterCraft’s business in the US, per Adara Ventures.

Commenting on the Series A in a statement, Alberto Gomez, managing partner at the VC firm said: “We continue to be inspired by the combination of engineering ability and vision that CounterCraft has shown in defining a new category of defensive tool that responds to the current threat landscape. Nothing else we have seen effectively uses a Know-Your-Attacker stance to turn the tables on threat actors. We are now excited about CounterCraft’s prospects for expanding its presence with sophisticated, large clients in the U.S. and European markets.”

CounterCraft’s core product is what it bills as a “Threat Deception platform” — supporting its customers’ security function by contributing to three areas: threat detection, intelligence and response; and by using deceptive techniques as a lure to gather better intelligence on threats and attackers for a smarter response.

The platform offers a set of common use cases that can be automatically deployed without further configuration — including ‘Remote Worker Protection’; Pre-Breach Activity; Sphere Phishing Response; and Lateral Movement — with the three strands of ‘detection, intelligence and response’ covered for all use cases.

The platform is also designed to integrate with customers’ incident response workflows, and has the ability to reconfigure defensive systems in real time to mitigate risks from ongoing attacks.

CEO David Barroso notes, for example, that CounterCraft’s platform is fully integrated with the MITRE ATT&CK TTP classification project.

In terms of intelligence gathering Barroso says it mines assets such as WiFi, SWIFT, email accounts and social media. “Uniquely, the platform can automatically convert this harvested data into active responses. This puts CISOs back in the driving seat when defending,” he added in a statement.

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