SAP, Comcast Back Israeli Data Protection Startup BigID

Comcast Ventures, the investment arm of U.S.-based telecommunication company Comcast Corporation, and enterprise software company SAP SE, have participated in a $14 million funding round for BigID Inc., an Israeli cybersecurity startup. BigID announced the completion of the Series A round on Monday. Palm Springs, Florida-based venture capital firm ClearSky Security and existing investor BOLDstart Ventures also participated in the round.

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Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Tel Aviv with additional offices in New York, BigID develops and markets a data protection product that uses machine learning technologies to track and guard enterprise customer and employee data.

BigID CEO Dimitri Sirota. Photo: PR

BigID's product, launched in 2017, is designed to help organizations address the new data protection, privacy, and governance requirements such as China’s Cybersecurity Law—which goes into effect in June—and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), effective as of May.

In a statement, BigID said it will use the funding to recruit additional engineers in Israel and to expand its global sales and marketing operations. The company has raised a total of $16.1 million in total equity funding to date and currently employs a 16-person team.

ClearSky Security’s Managing Director Jay Leek will join BigID’s board of directors, BigID said.

“On the eve of GDPR and in the midst of endless mega breaches, we’re in a new era of personal data rights,” Mr. Leek said in a statement. “BigID is uniquely positioned to help companies meet the new set of data governance, protection, and compliance requirements.”

“Customers are the lifeblood of any business and unless an organization can properly safeguard the security and privacy of their customer data they will not survive in the digital economy,” Dimitri Sirota, BigID’s CEO, said in a statement.