Data Privacy is always on the priority list for companies. A company which possesses the data of thousands of customers has to ensure the customer identities are protected. The sheer volume of data in this technology-driven world makes it overwhelming to handle. Cloud security is also eyed upon as a matter of concern since most organizations are using cloud computing in one form or the other. The security, governance and compliance issues make cloud security a complicated process.
Fortanix is a data-first multi-cloud security company. With Fortanix, organizations gain the freedom to accelerate their digital transformation, combine and analyze private data, and deliver secure applications that protect the privacy of the people they serve. Fortanix decouples security from infrastructure – security becomes a property of the data itself.
Fortanix was co-founded by Ambuj Kumar and Anand Kashyap in the year 2016. Prior to founding Fortanix, Ambuj Kumar was the lead architect at Cryptography Research Inc. where he led and developed many of the company’s security technologies that go into millions of devices every year. Anand Kashyap has previously worked at Symantec and VMware, as a researcher and an engineer in the areas of security and networking.
“Fortanix helps protect encryption keys, databases, machine learning algorithms, and containers to help secure organizations’ data in private, public and hybrid cloud environments.”
– Ambuj Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO
Fortanix also helps organizations protect their data in systems that might be vulnerable, on remote clouds and even when systems are compromised. The startup’s Runtime Encryption technology helps keep keys, data and applications protected while in use. The startup is also helping organizations address General Data Protection Regulation privacy rights requirements and secure artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. It also helps address critical enterprise blockchain security requirements with advanced cryptographic algorithms and data protection features. Fortanix Self-Defending Key Management Service (KMS) provides unified management of keys, encryption, tokenization, and secrets management across multi-cloud infrastructures. The clients of the company include adidas, NEC, Valeo, intel, EQUINIX, IBM, etc.
Some of the startup’s milestone achievements include:
- 2017 – Fortanix commercially launches its Runtime Encryption Technology
- 2018 – Fortanix was honored as Startup of the Year; Recognized in Most Innovative Software Security Product of the Year and Innovation in Next-Generation Security Award Categories in the 14th Annual Info Security Product Guide’s 2018 Global Excellence Awards.
- 2019 – Fortanix was awarded FIPS 140-2 Level 3 Certification enabling businesses to replace Legacy Encryption hardware with a modern Encryption platform.
- 2019 – Google Cloud Platform collaborates with Fortanix to deliver External Key Management System for public cloud.
- 2020 – Fortanix Self-Defending Key Management Service™ made available on Microsoft Azure to help customers protect private data in the public cloud.
- 2020 – Fortanix partners with VMware to enable Cloud Service Providers to deliver Data Security as a service.
- 2020 – Fortanix launches Cloud Data Control to secure private data as businesses migrate to public cloud.
Microsoft Azure customers worldwide now gain access to Fortanix to take advantage of the scalability, reliability, and agility of Azure to drive application development and shape business strategies.
Fortanix raised $23 million in a Series B funding round led by Intel Capital in 2019. The funds are utilized to fuel Fortanix’s growth in international markets and support the joint strategy of Fortanix and Intel to drive the ability for enterprises to move data more securely from on-premises and offsite to the cloud.
“Intel shares Fortanix’s goal of protecting data in-use during runtime. We look forward to continued collaboration to help solve the complex data privacy challenges our customers face, leveraging hardware-based protections such as Intel SGX.”
-Window Snyder, Chief Software Security Officer, Vice President and General Manager, Intel’s Platform Security Division
Fortanix makes good stride in solving the data security and cloud computing challenges for today as well as in future.