Fivecast, an Australian open-source intelligence (OSINT) software company, has secured almost $30 million in its Series A funding round to expand its services in key markets, including Five Eyes nations.
Fivecast is leveraging the new funding to build out its product portfolio, and drive growth in the Five Eyes community following strong momentum in Australia, a surge in demand in the US, and the establishment of its UK office.
It is also targeting the Asia Pacific region and Europe, adding further capabilities in adjacent use cases such corporate security and financial intelligence.
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“An increasingly complex and growing threat landscape combined with the sheer volume of data available online make it extremely difficult for intelligence personnel to collect, filter and analyse data in a timely way,” Fivecast CEO and Co-Founder Dr Brenton Cooper said.
“Our platform enables customers to fight the proliferation of threats, pierce through sophisticated online landscapes, and speed up investigations to protect global communities and organisations.”
Dr Cooper states that Fivecast, which has been able to aid government agencies and corporations in identifying threats, reducing risks and mitigating incidents across a diverse range of use cases, will be able to utilise the funds provided to them.
“This Series A funding ensures we can continue building advanced capabilities to support our customers’ targeted objectives and add headcount to service markets across the globe – particularly in Australia, the US and the UK.”
This round of investment takes Fivecast’s total funding received to AU$34 million.
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The funding, which is expected to support the rising demand for data and risk analytics among governments and corporations, is led by US-based cyber security venture capital firm Ten Eleven with additional investment from existing Australian backers
“We see open-source intelligence (OSINT) as a large and emerging sector driven by the explosion of publicly available content, now growing ever-larger via the newly accessible AI-generated multi-media content platforms,” Ten Eleven Ventures Managing Partner Alex Doll said.
“Governments, law enforcement, and other organisations need a faster and easier way to collect and analyse this open-source data. Fivecast’s advanced collection methods and AI-supported analysis tools bypass current manual data analysis processes to meet this important need.”
Martin Duursma, a Partner at Main Sequence, praised Fivecast’s ability to tackle problems by using AI and ML to decipher data.
“Deep tech is boundless in its ability to create safer societies through research, data and advanced capabilities that tackle among the most pressing challenges we face,” he said.
“Fivecast incorporates these principles to address the growing spectrum of global threats by deciphering almost endless troves of publicly available data and applying AI to help uncover insights essential to protecting communities and organisations. It’s yet another example of Australian deep-tech innovation making a positive, large-scale impact on the world.”
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As a collaboration between government agencies and leading research institutions, Fivecast provides OSINT technology powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to aid defence, intelligence, police, border security and corporations in keeping society safer.
The company’s software enables the targeted collection and risk analysis of publicly available information for specific use cases, such as identifying extremists, terrorists, drug trafficking and organised crime.