Blackbird, Airtree back $18m round for Australia's Darwinium
Blackbird Ventures and Airtree Ventures have participated in a USD 18m Series A round for Darwinium, an Australian digital security start-up that moved its headquarters to the US in April.
Silicon Valley-based US Venture Partners (USVP) led the round, which included support from Boston-based VC firm Accomplice. Both US investors count cybersecurity as a core vertical.
It follows a USD 10m seed round provided by Airtree and Blackbird in November of last year. Airtree and Blackbird set records for Australasian VC fundraising in 2022, collecting AUD 700m (USD 441m) and AUD 1bn, respectively, for their latest vintages.
Darwinium claims differentiation in fraud detection by transferring the relevant processes to its clients’ network perimeters, which it refers to as “the edge.” This is said to provide businesses a holistic view of their customers’ online experience across every digital touchpoint, and better separate trusted and risky behaviour.
The company is also touted as having pioneered a software-as-a-service (SaaS) approach to data protection that weaves strong, strategic data security into its unique, edge-based approach. This allows for the encryption and anonymization of data on the edge. Any analysed customer data is stored within an organisation’s own infrastructure, with its own keys.
“The Darwinium team has built something truly unique,” Rick Lewis, general partner at USVP, said in a statement.
“Darwinium offers a product that is both simple to deploy and effective at reducing fraud losses and reputational damage associated with the ever-more complex web of digital fraud. Darwinium is a game-changer, differentiated in a crowded market, offering the innovation that businesses are asking for to simplify their risk stack.”
The Series A capital will be used to scale the edge-based offering across global geographies, with Darwinium observing rapid uptake in industries such as financial technology, e-commerce, gaming, and gambling. In addition to Sydney and San Francisco, the company maintains an office in London.
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