DarkOwl secures strategic growth investment funds

DarkOwl LLC, a Denver-based cybersecurity company specialising in darknet data, has announced that it has closed on an US$8 million investment funding round led by B2B software investor, Five Elms Capital. DarkOwl is a provider of darknet data, scoring and intelligence to the cybersecurity and law enforcement markets and has amassed one of the world’s largest databases of darknet content.

The company’s primary platform product is DarkOwl Vision, a searchable database of darknet content that is updated in near real-time and includes data sources such as Tor, Telegram, Zeronet, IRC and other darknet networks. DarkOwl uses machine learning and other tools to detect sites in the darknet and collect data at scale and then offers a range of tools to allow users to search and parse results and focus on specific, actionable intelligence.

Earlier this year, DarkOwl launched DARKINT Enterprise Scores. This unique product offering quantifies an organisation’s darknet footprint and generates an associated score which correlates to risk for the enterprise. Both DARKINT Enterprise Scores and DarkOwl Vision are available directly via its SaaS platform and API, as well as through various data aggregator platforms.

“The demand for data and intelligence is growing as cybersecurity professionals increasingly understand that if you don’t have eyes on the darknet, you’re not getting the full picture when it comes to the security posture of your organisation,” says Mark Turnage, CEO of DarkOwl.

“Our customers find that our data and our darknet platform offer unique insight into this important and growing part of the internet. Our new Scores product allows insurance underwriters and others to quickly measure darknet exposure and its associated risk for any organisation and to focus their mitigation efforts accordingly.”

“In a space that has been notoriously difficult to navigate, DarkOwl provides its customers with access to the data they need to make important business decisions in real-time,” said Thomas Kershisnik, Managing Director at Five Elms Capital. “We’re very excited to partner with the DarkOwl team as their product, culture and leadership set the stage to build a global industry-leading company.”

With this funding, DarkOwl plans on expanding and refining its machine learning and data collection, growing its sales, client services and product support teams and further developing its analytical tools for specific customer use cases.