Dathena, an innovator in artificial intelligence-powered data protection, part of the CapHorn Invest cast of companies since 2020, recently announced its acquisition by world leader Proofpoint. As a result of that transaction, CapHorn Invest — together with most other stockholders — was cashed out of its position in Dathena. This latest exit in the CapHorn Invest track record carried with it positive returns for the firm, as well as positive impressions left with Dathena and its management team.
Led by Principal François Santi, CapHorn Invest placed an early bet on Dathena and its CEO and Co-Founder, Christopher Muffat. According to Santi, “The data showed the deeplearning space to be worthy of our attention, but Christopher’s drive and leadership are what ultimately sold us on the investment.” CapHorn Invest took part in a $12 million Serie A alongside Jungle, Seeds et Cerracap.
Read also : retour & learnings sur notre investissement dans Dathena (on why we invested in the company) (in french)
Post-exit, Santi described Muffat as “exactly the kind of enterprising CEO we look for at CapHorn Invest” and referred to this intense investment period as “Resilience, roller coaster, international expansion: here are the 5 terms that could sum up two years alongside a talented team crowned with a very nice Exit with the giant ProofPoint”
Proofpoint, Inc., is a leading cybersecurity and compliance company. With this acquisition, Proofpoint strengthens its cloud-based people-centric security solutions by adding AI-based data classification to its Information & Cloud Security platform, helping organizations to better understand information risk and help to eliminate data loss in today’s hybrid world.
“Data doesn’t lose itself. People lose data, and organizations are increasingly adopting data loss prevention strategies to manage that risk. Unfortunately, legacy products fall far short in actually preventing, detecting, and investigating data loss incidents in real time or immediately after they occur,” said Gary Steele, CEO, Proofpoint. “Integrating Dathena’s multi-patented, next-gen AI engine into our people-centric DLP solutions will provide our customers with unparalleled data protection and help them meet their challenging internal and regulatory compliance requirements.”
Dathena’s cutting-edge AI and cloud technologies will complement Proofpoint’s Information & Cloud Security platform, enabling organizations to automatically discover and classify data in real-time and better understand information risk with industry specific out-of-the-box and custom AI and Machine Learning (ML)-driven data classification models.
“We are thrilled to welcome the talented Dathena team that built this cutting-edge technology to Proofpoint, and we look forward to working together to help our customers protect their data,” added Steele.
“Proofpoint has firmly established itself as a DLP leader, and joining them provides us with the perfect opportunity to fulfill our mission of protecting the data and privacy of organizations around the world,” said Christopher Muffat, Founder & CEO, Dathena. “I’m incredibly proud of what we have achieved as a team through our unique technology and many innovations enabling better data protection. Working together with Proofpoint we will reach thousands of new customers, while further building trust in a digital world.”
