Cybersecurity start-up in $2.65 million investment

A cybersecurity firm has secured $2.65 million in pre-seed investment to support its growth.

London-based Ossprey says the funding will accelerate product development, expand its engineering and commercial teams, and support international expansion.

The oversubscribed funding round was led by Episode 1 Ventures, with participation from Osney Capital and Octopus Ventures.

Founded by Nate Dunning and David Read, Ossprey focuses on securing software supply chains by identifying malicious code hidden within open-source software packages before it reaches production environments.

The technology is designed to address growing risks associated with artificial intelligence-assisted software development, as organisations increasingly rely on open-source components and automated coding tools.

Since completing the funding round, the company has expanded its team to seven employees, enhanced its platform and introduced continuous scanning across major open-source ecosystems to identify malicious software packages.

Nate says Ossprey now plans to continue expanding across the UK, Europe and North America while preparing for a further investment round to support its next phase of growth.

He said: “Software development has fundamentally changed.

“Artificial intelligence is enabling organisations to build software faster than ever before, but it’s also dramatically increasing the amount of code entering production and creating new opportunities for attackers to hide malicious software inside trusted open-source packages. 

“We founded Ossprey because existing approaches weren’t designed for the pace modern engineering teams now operate at. 

“Organisations shouldn't have to choose between shipping software quickly and building it securely. 

“This investment allows us to continue developing technology that helps organisations build safely at AI speed while expanding our reach internationally.”

Paul Wilkes, partner at Osney Capital, added: “Every engineering team now depends on open-source code they didn't write and can't fully vouch for. 

“Most tools check that code against a list of things already known to be bad. 

“Ossprey looks at what the code actually does.

“Nate and David are the perfect team to build it.”

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