Clutch Security: $8.5 Million (Seed) Raised To Advance Universal Non-Human Identity Security Platform

By Amit Chowdhry • Aug 11, 2024

Clutch Security announced it emerged from stealth and unveiled its groundbreaking Universal Non-Human Identity (NHI) Security Platform. The company also revealed a $8.5 million Seed funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Merlin Ventures and notable angel investors. Clutch’s mission is to deliver end-to-end NHI security and proactively bridge NHI security gaps across the entire organizational landscape without affecting business velocity.

The growth of NHIs (e.g. API keys, secrets, tokens, and service accounts) in enterprises, spanning across cloud, SaaS, on-prem, vaults, code repositories, CI/CD pipelines, and data warehouses creates many unique management and security challenges. And the rapid rise of AI is one of the drivers for the rapid growth of NHIs within enterprises. Plus the use of AI in automating tasks and processes necessitates the creation of numerous NHIs to interact with various systems and applications. As enterprises deploy AI at scale, the number of NHIs grows swiftly, leading to a 1:45 human-to-non-human ratio.

Clutch offers a comprehensive solution to these challenges with its Universal NHI Security Platform. And Clutch enables security teams with complete visibility, encompassing any NHI type across the entire organizational landscape. The Clutch platform enables security teams to understand which NHIs exist easily, their full context, and associated risks through simplified yet detailed Identity Lineage visualization. And Clutch offers sophisticated NHI security and management functionality, including risk identification and prioritization based on severity and business impact. It provides tailored actionable remediation playbooks to address identified risks effectively.

When any NHI-related suspicious or abnormal behavior occurs, Clutch detects it and enables swift response and incident resolution immediately. It is also seamlessly integrated with existing security workflows, protecting enterprises from potential breaches. It also enables unique Zero Trust protections, allowing enterprises to proactively thwart risks.

By certifying and verifying all NHIs, Clutch enables enterprises to verify the trust level of their identities, enabling a comprehensive NHI Zero Trust architecture. And this leads to increases in business velocity without compromising security, all on a platform specifically built for scale.

Along with the previously mentioned investors, Clutch is also backed by CCL (Cyber Club London), and industry leaders and angel investors like Nir Polak, Founding Investor, co-founder, chairman of the board and formerly CEO at Exabeam; Shlomo Kramer, the co-founder of cyber-security companies Check Point, Imperva, and Cato Networks; Armon Dadgar, co-founder and CTO of HashiCorp, and more.

KEY QUOTES:

“As more and more enterprise infrastructure gets automated, non-human identities are rapidly becoming the weakest link, and require a different type of security solution. The team at Clutch has deep domain expertise and context that allows them to build a comprehensive platform that solves the challenges enterprises have around non-human identities. It’s been incredible to watch them build a world-class team and get the platform to customers in record time.”

  • Guru Chahal, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners

“We spent decades on the frontlines assisting organizations in contending with cyber attacks, and witnessed the emergence of Non-Human Identity threats and their devastating impact. We built Clutch to equip security teams with a universal solution delivering complete visibility, context, security, and management for all NHIs, helping them not only to identify risks early and remediate effectively, but also to proactively strengthen their defenses while certifying and verifying NHIs. With support from great investors and industry leaders, our goal is to lead the market in NHI security.”

  • Clutch Security Co-Founder & CEO Ofir Har-Chen

“Understanding Non-Human Identities is crucial in cybersecurity, especially for enterprises operating in multi-environment or heavily cloud-based settings like ours. Clutch fortifies companies by protecting these digital identities with clear visibility and full context. Their platform addresses the challenges of this rapidly growing digital landscape, creating a more secure and resilient operational environment.”

  • David Stender, CISO at BankUnited

“Partnering with Clutch represents a significant step forward in enhancing enterprise security. As non-human identity-related threats have emerged as a major trend, Clutch’s innovative and holistic approach is both timely and essential. The team’s deep domain expertise ensures they are well-equipped to tackle these challenges head-on. We are excited to support Clutch’s mission and look forward to seeing them set new standards in the industry.”

  • Shay Michel, Managing Partner of Merlin Ventures