Infosec Startup Scrut Automation Raises $3 Mn To Expand In US, EU And Asia Markets

Information security (infosec) startup Scrut Automation has raised $3 Mn in seed funding from Lightspeed and Endiya Partners.

Founded in 2021 by Aayush Ghosh Choudhury and Jayesh Gadewar, Scrut Automation offers a full-stack information security compliance platform that acts as a “virtual chief information security officer” (CISO).

According to the startup, it reduces CTOs’ (chief technology officer) and compliance teams’ infosec compliance work by almost 70% by offering a single window to access all external infosec resources including auditors and penetration testers. 

Scrut automates labour-intensive compliance tasks using integrations with Cloud and SaaS tools and automatically collects hundreds of evidence artifacts. The startup claims that this process would take weeks otherwise. 

It will use the freshly-infused capital to expand operations in the US, EU, and Asia markets. It will also enhance automation capabilities and aims to create a large marketplace for infosec resources including auditors, subject matter experts and penetration testers.

“Managing compliance towards the latest global infosec standards and responding to Enterprise Infosec assessments are the most painful parts of a CTO’s job. Our approach is to combine technology with human expertise to cover even the edge cases, and thus offload most of the compliance-related work from the CTO’s table so that they can focus on building the business and not worry about compliance,” said Aayush Ghosh Choudhury, cofounder and CEO at Scrut.

In a survey conducted by KPMG last year, 18% of the 500 CEOs interviewed said that cybersecurity risks would be the greatest threat to their organisation’s growth in the coming three years. The figure was 10% when a similar survey was conducted in the middle of 2020.

According to Cybercrime Magazine, the imperative to protect critical digital investments will drive double-digit annual growth in cybersecurity spending for years to come. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that the $262.4 Bn spent on cybersecurity last year will balloon to $456.9 Bn in 2025. This could mean that a cumulative $1.75 Tn would be spent on cybersecurity between 2021 and 2025.

“Information Security Compliance is a must-have for enterprises as well as mid-size IT/ITeS/SaaS companies globally. A One-Stop-Shop SaaS Platform like Scrut that automates compliance-related collaboration, controls, and monitoring, is finding resonance with CTOs and compliance teams worldwide,” said Sateesh Andra of Endiya Partners.

In December last year, Bengaluru-based cybersecurity startup CloudSEK had raised $7 Mn in a Series A funding round led by MassMutual Ventures. In July last year, UK-based telecom giant BT Group led Safe Security’s $33 Mn investment round.