Arsen, the French startup that helps businesses protect themselves against cybercriminals, recently raised 2.5 million euros in funding. Business Cool spoke with the two founders of this startup, Thomas Le Coz and Alexandre Esser. They enlightened us on their journeys and their future objectives.
Everything you need to know about Arsen
Who are you ?
We are Thomas Le Coz, and Alexandre Esser, both engineers. Thomas studied at HEI Lille and Alexandre at EPITECH Paris. We first founded an agency in 2016 in which we provided consulting and development on learning technologies and eLearning solutions.
We both had a passion for cybersecurity and a thirst to apply our skills to this industry, while building a product rather than an agency. We therefore stopped developing the agency and founded Arsen based on the observation that the human element is today the first entry point for cybercriminals.
What does Arsen do?
Today, we enable our clients to precisely evaluate the behavior of their employees in the face of realistic phishing attacks, phishing being the social engineering attack par excellence: manipulation of employees in order to mislead them and carry out potentially dangerous actions that will be exploited by cybercriminals to carry out their attacks.
Phishing still represents the leading vector of attacks today (42% of cyberattacks begin with phishing) and for us it was a good way to present our approach to our clients. We sell our solution to SMEs and mid-sized companies, as well as to cybersecurity agencies and experts who use our white label technology.
Arsen’s fundraising
Why did you raise 2.5 million euros?
We have two axes for this survey:
- recruit a team allowing us to execute on a larger scale and accelerate our development;
- invest in research projects to better understand and model the behavior of employees when faced with social engineering techniques.
Why did you choose to bring these investors into your capital?
Arsen chose to bring Elaia Partners, French Founders, as well as business angels into its capital. We chose Elaia for its DeepTech DNA and its connections with the world of research, as well as their leading, very structuring positioning. LeFonds’ choice of French Founders to support our internationalization strategy.
What will Arsen look like in 5 years?
Arsen will be the leading platform for managing human risk in cyberattacks.
