Posted Oct 3, 2022 9:11 AM
Already the French leader in antispam with its captcha authenticating the author by question-answer, the Marseille software publisher Mailinblack is going to tackle the overall security of professional messaging. “Nearly 90% of cyberattacks go through email. Our ambition is to create a real digital bodyguard for employees by diversifying our offer around subjects such as password management, data transfer or digital depollution”, explains its president, Thomas Kerjean.
He now has the means: after having raised 14 million euros in 2019, he announced an LBO operation which will provide him with more than 50 million euros to become, he hopes, “a key player in the sector in Europe”. The operation is led by Apax Partners, via its Apax Development fund which takes 60% of the company’s capital alongside NewAlpha Verto, historic shareholders and management, including Thomas Kerjean, who took over as head of the company three years ago after heading Microsoft’s cloud division .
14,000 customers
Founded in 2003, Mailinblack has built its reputation by attacking the weak point of robot software that floods mailboxes with spam: they can neither read nor write! Its software asks each e-mail sender to authenticate himself by typing a code of several characters listed in the request. If he responds, the email is transmitted and the address is added to the list of authorized senders. But since the bots won’t respond, their spam will be blocked.
This infallible parade has attracted nearly 14,000 companies, hospitals and local authorities in France, totaling more than 3 million users and 5 billion emails processed per year. The activity should provide the company with 11 million euros in turnover this year, up 28%.
Mailinblack has already begun its diversification by adding to its antispam a new messaging security solution, called “Protect”, which detects phishing and data hacking emails, as well as a cyberculture offer intended to educate employees. best practices for managing emails. “Employees are the first bulwark against cyberattacks,” explains the boss. With its new financial resources, the company also intends to consolidate this very fragmented sector in Europe. It plans to acquire about ten of them with the aim of quadrupling its turnover by 2026.
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