Data protection startup with Ukrainian roots Spin Technology raises $16M

The data protection software vendor Spin Technology has raised $16 million in a Series A round with a $55 million post-money valuation. Blueprint Equity led the round with participation from Santa Barbara Venture Partners and Blu Venture Investors, TechCrunch reports. 

• Spin is a platform that uses AI to detect “shadow IT” activities in cloud SaaS environments used by companies. Spin acts like a kind of souped-up antivirus program, scanning SaaS apps using an algorithm and database of malicious apps and browser extensions. The technology can detect ransomware across platforms, including Google Workspace, Microsoft Office 365, and Salesforce, performing automatic risk assessments and backups and allowing users to create policies that dictate access management.

• Spin Technology was founded in 2013 in Ukraine by Dmitry Dontsov and originally was called Spinbackup. Though it is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, the entire R&D department is located in Ukraine – the company has offices in Kyiv and Odesa.
• The company has more than 1,600 customers and has raised $18 million in venture capital. The first venture investment was made by the Ukrainian investment company AVentures Capital in 2017. The amount of the deal was $500,000 in the seed round. In 2019, Spinbackup attracted $1.5 million from the Polish investment fund bValue with participation from TMT Investments and Silicon Valley’s angel investors.
• Dmitry Dontsov, CEO of Spin Technology, said that the fresh funds go toward growth supporting, expanding Spin’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, and growing the startup’s marketing, sales, and engineering teams.