- Very Good Security announced it raised $35 million in a Series B round of funding led by Goldman Sachs’ Merchant Banking Division
Very Good Security (VGS) announced it raised $35 million in Series B funding led by Goldman Sachs’ Merchant Banking Division with participation from existing investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Vertex Ventures US. This round of funding will support VGS’ rapid growth as a number of companies are trusting VGS for their sensitive data needs, including Brex, Travel Bank, Deserve, Fivestars, and LendUp.
“For most companies, data is simply an input to achieve a business outcome such as getting paid, underwriting a loan or running a background check,” said Mahmoud Abdelkader, CEO and co-founder of Very Good Security. “VGS provides specialized SaaS infrastructure to make it easy for developers and businesses to achieve their objectives while offloading the risk that comes with data custodianship.”
How does VGS work? VGS is building modern SaaS infrastructure for data security, compliance, and privacy. And VGS acts as a custodian for any type of sensitive data like payments, PII, access credentials, and health records thus providing customers synthetic and aliased data that they can use in place of the original values.
“Data compromise is one of the largest cyber-security and reputation risks businesses face today,” added David Campbell, managing director at Goldman Sachs’ Merchant Banking Division. “Securing data is traditionally complex and expensive. VGS’ unique solution redefines the challenge by removing the sensitive data from systems making them easier to build, secure and manage, reducing both time and cost of securing data.”
With this technology, companies can adopt a “Zero Data” approach — which eliminates the need to store sensitive data within their own systems. And VGS facilitates the secure exchange of data with any approved endpoint so clients are able to retain full use and control of their data without the liability, breach risk, or compliance burden of having to maintain a secure data environment themselves.
As corporate data governance is under increasing scrutiny from regulators and consumers, the expectations of how data is secured and shared evolve. And Goldman Sachs’ investment in VGS recognizes the unique value proposition that the company offers in helping customers ensure user privacy and data security without compromising functionality or business outcomes.
“Consumers’ desire for privacy does not have to be at odds with businesses’ ability to achieve their objectives,” explained Alastair (Alex) Rampell, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “VGS is unique in that it lets companies use sensitive data without needing to see it or store it themselves. It is a win for both sides.”
Very Good Security was launched in 2016 by Abdelkader and Marshall Jones. And the company is based in San Francisco.
