SA国际传媒

Companies focusing on anti-phishing raised a decent amount of cash this week: all together , , and raised $139 million in venture capital funding.

, a San Francisco startup that checks whether or not the person sending you email is legitimate, just raised $45 million from Insight Partners. Its total funding is now at $84 million, and this fresh capital will be used to expand internationally, build products, and hire more engineers, Valimail鈥檚 CEO and co-founder, told me.

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, which uses artificial intelligence to detect spam and attacks, raised , and , a phishing and malware startup, .

鈥淲e don鈥檛 compete with either of those two companies,鈥� clarified Valimail鈥檚 Garc铆a-Tobar. 鈥淎nd we鈥檙e probably going to partner with one of them.鈥�

The biggest difference between Valimail and a company like Ironscales or Vade, is that Valimail targets questionable emails by looking at the sender versus the content, Garc铆a-Tobar said.

The focus on sender identity was inspired by how attackers are getting more eloquent in their emails. Since its known that startups look within emails for questionable content, hackers are starting to use more believable, less red flag-filled, vocabulary and phrasing, Garcia-Tobar believes.

Sender identity is the method by which 鈥渕any modern phishing attacks happen,鈥� he said.

鈥淲e鈥檒l make sure an email from IBN doesn鈥檛 get through, but an email from IBM does,鈥� he said.

That said, Garc铆a-Tobar said he recommends a layered approach, working both on the 鈥渨ho鈥� of an email and the 鈥渨hat.鈥� To help manage content within potential scam emails, the company has partnerships with and .

From what it says, the company is making a mark. Valimail told me it has doubled or tripled its revenue each year since launching in 2015, but did not disclose specifics. Meanwhile IronScales told that it experienced triple-digit growth and ten times revenue growth in the U.S.

Everyone wants a safer inbox, this last week just shows that investors and the market are willing to bet that startups can make it happen.

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