SPHERE Gets $31 Million Series B Led by Edison Partners
Women-led firm ensures that only those who are permitted have access to critical systems, enhancing enterprise security.
SPHERE Technology Solutions (Newark), which calls itself a leader in identity hygiene, announced a $31 million Series B investment led by Edison Partners (Princeton), a growth equity firm, with participation from existing investor Forgepoint Capital (San Mateo, Calif). As part of the transaction, Edison General Partner Lenard Marcus will join SPHERE’s board of directors.
Led by Rita Gurevich, founder and CEO, SPHERE has been around since 2009. In 2021, the company received a $10 million Series A led by Forgepoint.
As cyberattacks escalate in number and severity, identity hygiene has become fundamental to
enterprise security, digital transformation and mandatory compliance. The effort to ensure employee access only to required resources was a direct response to the rise in ransomware attacks and to bad actors who take advantage of wide open and mismanaged access.
SPHERE said that it immediately “shrinks the attack surface” of these threats through an automated platform that provides visibility and remediation of identity hygiene risks, along with tech-enabled managed services, delivering the expertise needed to quickly implement these crucial programs. SPHERE’s current customers are some of the largest and most highly regulated organizations globally, including financial institutions and healthcare providers, among others.
With this investment, SPHERE will expand its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings; and it will channel ecosystems and alliances, as well as sales and marketing, to accelerate growth, the company said.
“As a company founded and operated by a team of security practitioners, we developed a
mission-critical solution well before the market even deemed it mission-critical,”
Gurevich said in a press release. “We’ve experienced the problems that our customers
encounter firsthand, and understand the time, dedication and resources it takes to solve the
complex issues they face every day. We’re thrilled to have the support of Edison Partners and
Forgepoint Capital for our next chapter of growth.”
For over 13 years, SPHERE has enabled IT and security teams to adopt a Zero Trust model by
finding and fixing any type of identity access issue across any resource — in a fraction of the time it would take if done manually.
The platform SPHEREboard provides an end-to-end workflow for end-user and privileged account controls across cloud and on-premises systems and infrastructure; it also remediates open, excessive and inappropriate access and provides an evergreen path for sustainability.
“Identity management — and, more broadly, information security — starts with the ability to ensure that the only parties with access to sensitive or operational data are those identified by
management,” said Marcus. “SPHERE’s platform enables enterprises to improve their identity
hygiene and maintain compliance. Its managed services offerings enable it to service the mid-
market and large enterprises, where the problem is pervasive. Edison Partners is also proud to
support female trailblazers like Rita Gurevich, who are closing the gender diversity gap in a
historically male-dominated industry.”
“Our focus is to invest in the most innovative cybersecurity companies, and SPHERE’s
combination of automation and expertise is unmatched in the industry,” said Donald Dixon, Forgepoint Capital cofounder and managing director. “Major corporations, including many of the world’s leading financial institutions, rely on SPHERE for its ability to effectively address two critical use cases — Zero Trust initiatives and regulatory requirements for identity entitlements. We’re excited to continue our partnership and to welcome Lenard and Edison to the board of directors.”
