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Verizon and BlackBerry Lead Investment in Israeli Startup SAM

May 26, 2021

A network security company aimed at small businesses and consumers, SAM Seamless Network announced on Thursday that they had conducted a Series B funding round. The Israeli startup disclosed that they had raised $20 million led by BlackBerry as well as Verizon Ventures. Other investors include Intel Capital, NightDragon, ADT, and Blumberg Capital. After the latest funding round, the cybersecurity startup’s total funding has reached a value of $40 million and the new funds will be used for accelerating growth. This will enable the company to expand its security reach, as currently, they are protecting 70 million devices and 2 million networks globally. 

But, the expansion will allow them to secure 500 million devices and 10 million networks by the end of 2021. The previous funding round of the company was conducted two years ago and Sivan Rauscher, the chief executive of the company, said that they had decided to raise funds once more only from strategic investors. He said that they were generating good revenue and didn’t require additional financing. He said that they didn’t need to do more rounds and end up diluting their employees and investors. He stated that it is possible to survive on revenue alone and other companies should also give it a try.

According to the CEO, they had enjoyed the biggest market share in telecommunication companies within their sector in recent years. He asserted that they had now entered into a partnership with two strategic giants and this would be helpful in entering other areas of the communication space. He said that they were hiring more employees in Israel as well as abroad, in order to develop their product. The technology developed by SAM detects anomalies in the behavior of devices across the network in order to identify threats. The technology uses aggregated data for ensuring that legitimate traffic has safe pathways. 

SAM will be able to predict any upcoming widespread attack when it invests in new technology that leverages 5G visibility. The company was founded in 2016 by Eilon Lotem, Sivan Rauscher, and Shmuel Chafets, who are the CTO, CEO, and vice-chairman of the company. All three of them served as cyber specialists in the Israeli Army. The company develops software for installation onto home routers, thereby helping detect and block malware before it is able to reach connected devices. The advisors of the company are Liran Grinberg, Israel Grimberg, and Nadav Zafir, the co-founders of Team8. 

SAM has offices located in Tel Aviv, Berlin, and New York and it is quickly scaling its global workforce to meet the needs of future and current customers across countries. Currently, there are more than 50 people working for the company in Israel and it is planning on hiring 30 more after this funding round. Verizon Ventures’ Managing Director, Tammy Mahn said that SAM could become an enterprise-grade security solution for home networks and small businesses, as there was an increase in the number of at-home devices and more people across the globe were working from home. 

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