Galway-based Siren has obtained a €12 million EIB cash ticket for its investigative intelligence platform, helping to keep people and assets safer by empowering law enforcement with joined-up data insights.
Siren's platform includes network graph generation capabilities and data aggregation across several domains. In short, this means getting data from a highly dispersed network of criminal nodes into comprehensible, actionable formats, with search engines, analytics and reporting available through Siren's platform for the most complex investigations.
Kris Peeters, vice president of European Investment Bank, said: "The European Investment Bank is committed to supporting cybersecurity innovation and accelerating development of cutting-edge technology to improve security of citizens around the world.
"The €12 million backing for Siren will enhance analysis and investigation of data to combat human trafficking, strengthen law enforcement and tackle fraud.”
John Randles, Siren CEO, added: "It’s a real milestone that Siren has been endorsed by the European Investment Bank and we are very grateful. For a company at Siren’s stage of growth, access to funding of this magnitude will fuel our rapid expansion plans and allow us to provide many more organisations with access to our unique technology.
Of COVID-19's worrying aftereffects, perhaps one of the least talked about is a tidal wave of criminal activity. Just last year Interpol's global crime trend summary report identified surging crime in five areas as a priority to address. In 2020, the FBI believes US murders were almost 30% higher year/year. Trafficking of synthetic narcotics is on the up, and most surprising the trend is most acute in the well-developed Five Eyes intelligence-sharing nations, of the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
EIB's investment will directly lead to new operations being opened in EU borders, specifically in Galway. A new global R&D centre is set to expand Siren's workforce by 50% within two years, while also advancing its brand and marketing efforts. In addition to Galway, Siren has branch offices in London, Talence, and Philadelphia.
Before this round, Siren had lured support from Ireland's largest "indigenous" VC firm, Atlantic Bridge, managers of the academic spinout-oriented University Bridge Fund.
Founded in 2014, Siren has already convinced the US Anti-Human Trafficking Intelligence Initiative, National Child Protection Task Office and others to use its patented technology to access dark web, cyber threat and other risk intelligence data.
Would you like to write the first comment?
Login to post comments