Protenus adds $3M to Series A round

Healthcare cybersecurity startup Protenus raised $3 million in new funding.
The Series A extension was led by Kaiser Permanente Ventures. Massachusetts-based F-Prime Capital and existing investor LionBird Venture Partners also participated, the company said Wednesday.
“This support from two of the industry’s top institutional investors brings additional industry expertise to our team, and helps us meet the increasing demand for the Protenus platform,” cofounder Robert Lord said in a statement.
Along with funding, Lord said in an interview that Kaiser Permanente Venture’s healthcare expertise and F-Prime’s experience with both health and cybersecurity will help the company. He believes it also helps city’s tech community.
“I think it’s a real win for Baltimore, too,” he Lord said. “We’re bringing in this capital that represents a real acknowledgement of the talent and innovation in the ecosystem.”
Following the $4 million close last year, the company’s Series A is now at $7 million. Lord said the team grew to 30 people since the initial Series A, and they aim to grow to about 40 by the end of the year.
The company is seeing demand, Lord said, so Protenus is looking to expand sales and capabilities of their platform, which helps healthcare institutions protect patient data. Data breaches in healthcare have only increased since the company launched in 2014, and a Protenus analysis states a total of 27 million patient records were breached last year. High-profile attacks like WannaCry have put more focus on how vulnerable patient data can be.
The Protenus platform is mainly focused on insider threats, using artificial intelligence to detect when patient data in electronic health records or other systems are accessed inappropriately.
After meeting in medical school at Johns Hopkins, Lord and cofounder Nick Culbertson launched the company through Dreamit Health Baltimore. The startup moved to offices in the Tack Factory near Little Italy amid growth last year.