Contrast Security, a start-up developing an application security platform, has announced that it has recently landed strategic corporate investments by AXA Strategic Ventures and Microsoft Ventures. A release said that this financing is a subsequent closing to Contrast’s Series C round announced in October 2017. AXA Strategic Ventures is the venture capital fund backed by insurer AXA. The company has been developing cyber insurance products for both its commercial and private clients. Similarly, Microsoft Ventures is the corporate arm of Microsoft responsible for supporting entrepreneurs and start-ups with innovative new technologies. “Contrast Security is revolutionizing application security, making it continuous and highly accurate throughout the software lifecycle,” said AXA Strategic Ventures general partner Alex Scherbakovsky. “This investment also reflects our confidence in the strength of Contrast Security’s management team.” “Contrast Security arms developers and security professionals with the tools they need to both detect software vulnerabilities early in development and maintain continuous application attack monitoring and blocking into production,” a company release said. “By eliminating the number one source of security breaches today – insecure software applications – Contrast Security helps reduce AXA’s customers’ risk.” AXA has deployed Contrast Security’s technology in its operations in Switzerland and Germany. “We have transformed our whole Application Development into agile DevOps teams. With Contrast Security technology, all agile developers can build secure applications,” commented AXA Switzerland CIO and executive board member Andreas Maier. “Contrast is fully automated in our Jenkins-based continuous integration/deployment environment, which supports our high productivity and security targets.” “Application security is the fastest growing category in the global IT security market,” added Microsoft Ventures partner Rashmi Gopinath. “From developers using Microsoft Visual Studio, to organizations running their critical applications in the Azure cloud, Contrast Security delivers high-end real-time application security to protect against serious security threats. Our investment in Contrast Security is a reflection of our view of its state-of-the-art technology, and our belief in how it will benefit enterprise customers.” “Having two leaders from their respective industries recognize the potential of our self-protecting software is a major milestone for application security and Contrast Security. AXA is a proven innovator in its own right, designing products to protect organizations from loss. Meanwhile, Microsoft Ventures has proven to be an invested partner to start-ups, offering access to unrivaled technology, go-to market resources and strategic relationships around the world,” said Contrast Security CEO and board chairman Alan Naumann. “These strategic investors will enable us to accelerate our business goals and further our mission of building security safeguards directly into critical applications. The Contrast team is thrilled to have them as investors and partners.”
Insurer AXA has invested in cyber security firm Contrast Security alongside Microsoft . The cyber - security firm 's offering is already being used within AXA 's portfolio in its Swiss and German - based offices . The firm said Microsoft 's strategy , which seeks to eliminate clients ' access to proprietary software applications , will help reduce its own clients ' risk .