Protecting and insuring against cyber risks are priorities for all companies and organizations. French cybersecurity firm EGERIE has raised 30 million euro, from investors with expertise in insurance and cybersecurity (Tikehau Capital, Open CNP, Banque des Territoires and TIIN Capital) in order “to help executives analyse and quantify the financial risks of cyber-attacks.”
EGERIE’s founders, who are experts in IT and cyber risk, have “developed a model that links companies’ data assets with associated business risks.”
In the example of a sales process, the platform can “evaluate and adjust risk responses in real time, based on the evolution of threat landscape, hardware, software, suppliers, and previously unknown security vulnerabilities.”
EGERIE CEO and Founder Jean LARROUMETS, said:
“We can now model the financial and operational consequences of specific vulnerabilities on a given business process in real time. All parameters of a risk are linked in our model, which we call ‘the equation’. We’ve been perfecting it for a decade, and it is now stable.”
EGERIE provides customers with a complete “digital twin” of all their information assets and processes. And thanks to the decision-making capabilities of “the equation”, they can “formulate effective cybersecurity strategies and calculate ROI.”
Jean LARROUMETS added:
“Our platform considers every possible corrective action to a malicious attack, and automatically recalculates the risk level. With 300 clients in 90 countries, including Veolia, Orange, and Accenture, EGERIE now has thousands of cyber-oriented risk models for multiple digital environments or specific business functions and industry sectors that feed the ‘equation’.”
The number of cyber-attacks has grown exponentially in recent years. In 2022, French prosecutors “opened 600 cases for malicious cyber-attacks, up from just 65 in 2019.”
For companies, this increase has “become an insurance nightmare.”
Some companies have taken matters into their own hands.
In September 2022, Airbus, Veolia, Michelin, Adeo (Leroy Merlin’s parent company), and Sonepar joined forces with BASF and Solvay “to create a mutual “captive” insurance plan against malicious attacks.”
EGERIE’s Founder and Managing Director Pierre OGER, said:
“With this new fundraising, we’ll continue to invest in automation of data recovery, and we will develop specific reporting functionality for insurers. These new features will be even more valuable when the European directive NIS 2 (Network Internet Security) comes into force in October 2024, obliging companies to have effective security measures to mitigate the risk of malicious attacks.”
Thanks to EGERIE, executives can understand and “quantify their companies’ cyber risks.”
They can also “precisely calculate the return on investment of the actions taken to mitigate the risk.”
This knowledge is “a valuable corporate asset for shareholders, investors, and partners.”
EGERIE’s second priority will be “growth across Europe.”
The advantage of EGERIE’s model is that it is “continuously improving – the more customers who adopt the model and use “the equation”, the more accurate it becomes in quantifying the related risks.”
The funds raised are split “equally between EGERIE’s historic shareholder Tikehau Capital, Open CNP, a CNP Assurances corporate venture fund, Banque des Territoires, and TIIN Capital, a Dutch fund specialized in cyber security.”
Alexandra PAILHES, Head of Investments at Open CNP, a CNP Assurances corporate venture fund, concludes:
“Measuring cyber risk with relevant indicators, understandable by everyone and not just CISOs, is essential, particularly for the insurance and financial ecosystem. In line with our role as the most useful insurer and investor, we are happy to be able to support EGERIE financially in its European expansion.”