Bastion raises €2.5 million to give SMBs a fighting chance in the battle against cyberattacks

SMEs are prime targets for ransomware and phishing attacks. Why? Because small teams or local businesses have neither the know-how or the budget for a cybersecurity specialist on staff - and given that 'human error' is one of the main ‘gateways’ to an attack, small firms don't have someone sitting looking over 'curious' Eric’s shoulder saying, ‘don’t click that link’ into his ear.

French start-up Bastion is an all-in-one cybersecurity platform developed to solve the challenges of cybersecurity for businesses of all shapes and sizes, protecting them from cyberattacks targeting humans, web, devices, e-mails, cloud. The founding team of Arnaud Fournier, Arnaud Drizard, Sébastien Duc and Robin Costé are all ex Palantir (data firm) execs and they’ve developed an ‘affordable cybersecurity solution’ via its ‘intuitive and holistic protection platform’.

The platform continuously monitors the company's security posture, across different modules: external attack surface, employee data and password leaks on the darkweb, SaaS & E-mail accounts configuration as well as phishing simulations and it alters platform administrators when new issues arise. Bastion also includes a complete employee awareness program with simulated phishing attacks and interactive training modules.

Bastion has raised a €2.5 million Seed round with investment from Frst, Global Founders Capital, Kima Ventures and Motier Ventures, including angel investors Denis Duverne, Joshua Motta, Renaud Deraison and Gaëlle Olivier.

"This round will play an instrumental role in fuelling the development of both our technology and business. It will enable us to recruit key assets and accelerate our international strategy to fulfil our ambitions,” says Arnaud Fournier, CEO and co-founder of Bastion.

In the coming months Bastion plans to roll out a managed detection and response solution (MDR) which will detect and respond to attacks on its customers’ workstations, servers or cloud services within minutes - giving customers advanced cybersecurity tools, managed by experts, that are traditionally reserved for large organisations.

"SMBs are particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks, especially since the soaring growth in artificial intelligence is driving down the cost of waging such attacks. We believe that Bastion plays a key role in facing down these new threats,” says Pierre Entremont, co-founder and Managing Partner of Frst.

Bastion is using an indirect distribution model involving a network of trusted third parties, including Managed Services & Security Service Providers (MSPs & MSSPs), corporate banking businesses, insurers and insurance brokers (it gives customers a chance to improve their insurability posture). The solution is distributed as a Bastion-branded or white-label platform.