UpGuard raises USD $75m to expand AI cyber risk tools

UpGuard has raised USD $75 million in Series C funding in a minority round led by growth equity firm Springcoast Partners.

The investment will support UpGuard's next phase of growth, with a focus on product development, global go-to-market expansion, and potential mergers and acquisitions. Existing investors August Capital, Square Peg Capital, and Pelion Venture Partners also participated.

UpGuard operates from Hobart, Tasmania, and has a US headquarters in Mountain View, California. Founded in 2012, it sells an AI-powered platform it describes as Cyber Risk Posture Management.

Platform focus

The platform combines several areas of cyber risk management that organisations often run as separate programmes. These include supplier and vendor risk, external attack surface monitoring, workforce security, data-sharing controls, and automations used in governance, risk, and compliance workflows.

UpGuard positions the product as a unified view of cyber risk across internal and external factors, linking internal user behaviour with external vulnerabilities.

UpGuard reported increased use of AI-driven automation across risk assessments and security questionnaires. Over the last 100 days, it said the platform processed more than 23 billion tokens for risk assessments, threat signals, and questionnaire completion.

It also disclosed usage figures for automated features, saying customers have completed more than 70,000 AI risk assessments and 700,000 AI autofill questionnaires to date.

Threat triage

One product component, described as an AI Threat Analyst, focuses on sorting breach-related signals. UpGuard said the tool triages 90% of more than 483,000 breach signals, aligning with how security teams prioritise alerts.

According to UpGuard, the platform processes more than 100 billion risk signals each day. It did not provide a breakdown of what proportion of those signals come from third-party sources versus its own data collection and analysis.

UpGuard said it is trusted by 50,000 organisations across more than 90 countries, with more than 2,000 customers supported by a distributed workforce across 14 countries and localised support.

Market signals

The funding round comes as security teams face continuing pressure to assess the cyber posture of suppliers and partners. The rise in software supply chain incidents and the growth of external attack surfaces have increased the volume of third-party security reviews and questionnaires across many industries.

Vendors have increasingly emphasised automation for repetitive security tasks such as evidence gathering and questionnaire completion. UpGuard's reported numbers for automated questionnaires and assessments point to demand for tools that reduce manual review work.

UpGuard cited recognition in the G2 2026 Best Software Awards, where it ranked in the top 15 companies for Security and among the top 100 global software companies. It also said it has been the category leader on G2 for Third-Party and Supplier Risk Management for 15 consecutive quarters.

Springcoast was established in 2023 and is based in New York. It focuses on growth equity investments in software and technology companies.

"UpGuard has an opportunity to bridge the gap between risk and security, and this Series C round adds even more fuel to accelerate the delivery of our enterprise-grade solutions for the mid-market. This ensures that CISOs and lean security teams can stay resilient with best-in-class tools to address today's increasingly complex threat landscape," said Mike Baukes, co-founder and CEO of UpGuard.

Springcoast managing partner Holger Staude said the firm will back UpGuard's next stage of product development and expansion.

"UpGuard has proven its ability to execute and achieve significant scale and capital efficiency in a critical market, and they have the vision and technology to achieve even more. We are excited to partner with the UpGuard team as they expand their AI-CRPM platform capabilities and solidify their position as a leader in cyber risk posture management," said Staude.

UpGuard said the funding will be used for product development, global growth initiatives, and strategic acquisitions.