Uniken raises Rs 12 cr from Exfinity Venture Partners

The funding raised will be used for international expansion and business development

Uniken, a digital security firm, raised Rs 12 crore from Exfinity Venture Partners, a Bengaluru-based venture capital fund formed by veterans like T V Mohandas Pai, V Balakrishnan, Girish Paranjpe and Deepak Ghaisas. The funds will be used for international expansion and to establish market leadership in India.

Uniken provides a digital connectivity and access platform, REL-ID, which enables rapid growth of digital connections, securely. It creates a scalable digital trust dome – a private digital network which enables secure communication and secure access to the digital services and authenticates everything - users, apps and devices - to protect digital interactions and data from sophisticated cyber-attacks.

Uniken has recently launched its flagship product, REL-ID in Israel, and garnered over 2 million users in India who actively use this platform across 23 different installations, including banks like Axis bank, Bank of India and State Bank of India.

Uniken’s technology has also been adopted by Indian Defence organizations like WESEE and NSG. In Israel, Uniken has set up an office in Tel Aviv, and has partnered with a leading Israeli system integrator Bynet.

Balakrishnan V, Chairman of Exfinity Venture Partners said: “The worldwide cybersecurity market is defined by market sizing estimates that range from $71 billion in 2014 to $155+ billion by 2019. Global spending on mobile and network security is estimated at $11 billion annually, and growing. As organizations worldwide become more and more aware of the risks posed by the lack of protection against cyber threats, information security spending will continue to increase. Uniken provides a digital connectivity and access platform (software) – REL-ID- that creates a scalable private digital network of users, apps and devices. Exfinity’s philosophy is to back companies that create disruption and Uniken fits the bill perfectly.”

Uniken has previously raised first round of funding from Nexus Venture Partners last year. Since the initial funding, Uniken has grown substantially in India and made a successful foray in Israel. With Exfinity coming on board, Sandeep Singhal, Co-founder Nexus Venture Partners said “Uniken provides a world class solution to address the issues of phishing and man-in-the-middle attacks in large scale environments and after proving their mettle in Israel, undoubtedly the hardest market for an external security provider to enter, the partnership with Exfinity will help the company expand into other global markets.”

Uniken will employ the new investments in further cementing its position in the Indian digital security space and establishing itself in the US market by investing in people, technology, brand and infrastructure.

Commenting on this announcement, Sanjay Deshpande, CEO, Uniken said, “Given the high credentials and deep global experience of the partners in Exfinity, this milestone reinforces the belief in the growth story of Uniken in the digital security space.  Over the last year, we have made successful forays into the global markets and received endorsementsfor REL- ID in Israel and US. With this partnership with Exfinity, we aim to make REL-ID astrategic asset for global enterprises to rapidly grow their digital business.

Uniken recently inducted Dr. Thane Plambeck and Greg Whitehead to the board as Technology Advisors andcyber-security strategist, Menny Barzilay, former CISO of Israeli Defence Forces, in the capacity of Chief Security Evangelist.