Virtru

Co-founded by CEO John Ackerly and his brother and CTO, Will Ackerly, in 2012,[1] on the belief that sharing data securely is essential for a digital economy, Virtru empowers organizations to easily unlock the power of data while maintaining control, everywhere it’s stored and shared.

While working in national security, the co-founders experienced the unmet necessity for secure sharing first hand. As a White House policy advisor during 9/11, John saw how secure data sharing and collaboration could have helped connect the dots and save lives. Will spent eight years at the National Security Agency (NSA) where he specialized in cloud analytic and security architecture and experienced similar frustrations with data silos in the intelligence community. During his tenure at the NSA, Will created the Trusted Data Format (TDF)[2] so analysts and operators could confidently share data and collaborate across organizations.[3]

Virtru was created from these shared experiences[4] and the belief that privacy is both an economic and national security imperative. Today, Virtru remains committed to helping organizations realize the true potential of their data while protecting it from misuse, abuse, and theft.

With a focus on ease of use and granular-level data protection, Virtru grants organizations the freedom to focus on their mission, innovate, and obtain the peace of mind that comes with the power of privacy.

Virtru is privately funded with investments from Iconiq Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and other private investors. Iconiq Capital founding partner, Will Griffith, and Bessemer partner David Cowan, co-founder of Verisign, serve on the company’s board of directors. Sonatype CEO and Former CEO at Sourcefire, Wayne Jackson, and Authentic8 CEO, Scott Petry, who founded the email security company Postini, are also Virtru board members.

On August 22, 2016, Virtru announced that it closed a $29 million Series A funding[5] led by Bessemer Venture Partners with New Enterprise Associates, Soros Fund Management, Haystack Partners, Quadrant Capital Advisors, and Blue Delta Capital also participating in the round. On May 31, 2018, Virtru announced a $37 million Series B round[6] led by Iconiq Capital with participation from returning investors Bessemer Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Samsung, Blue Delta Capital, and Soros Fund Management.

Virtru offers a range of data protection products that provide encryption, access controls, key management, and persistent audit for customers that need to meet privacy and compliance requirements. At the core of Virtru-enabled applications is the open-standard Trusted Data Format (TDF). The TDF is a JSON-encoded data format that employs multiple cryptographic and security techniques to enable secure sharing in ways that are impossible with traditional network-based defenses.

While the TDF technology is applicable to a wide variety of data security applications, Virtru’s portfolio of products include:

• Data privacy solutions that transparently integrate into commonly used applications, such as Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, and Google Drive, providing seamless security and total control.[7]
• An extensible developer platform that enables third-party integrations with any application, connected device, or infrastructure.

Virtru’s flexible, easy-to-use, and trusted privacy technologies govern access to data throughout its full lifecycle – from creation through sharing, storage, analysis, and action. The TDF allows fine-grained access control for all file types and attachments, such as emails, Microsoft Office files, pdfs, photos, and videos.

Virtru is Google’s recommended encryption provider for Google Workspace (formerly known as G Suite)[8] and was selected as a member of the Microsoft Accelerator in 2017.