![ThreatSpike Raises $14M To Unify and Simplify Cybersecurity The funding, from Expedition Growth Capital, will expedite ThreatSpike’s continued global expansion as it brings enterprise-grade cybersecurity to mid-sized enterprises with its fixed price, all-in-one platform. Alongside Expedition’s investment, Darktrace co-founder Emily Orton is also joining the company’s Board of Directors, bringing a wealth of experience in growth and cybersecurity. LONDON, UK, [3] June, 2025 – ThreatSpike, an end-to-end cybersecurity provider, has raised $14 million in Series A funding to help organizations move beyond the complexity and cost of fragmented traditional security tools with a unified platform. The funding is led by Expedition Growth Capital and in conjunction with the investment, Will Sheldon, Partner at Expedition, and Emily Orton, co-founder at Darktrace, have joined ThreatSpike’s Board of Directors. “We founded ThreatSpike having witnessed first hand that achieving high quality cybersecurity protection is far too complex and costly,” said Adam Blake, CEO and Founder at ThreatSpike. “In a market full of three-letter acronym products and aggressive upselling, we take a different approach which puts customer security at the core. We are proud to combine world-class technology and expert support into one transparent, flexible solution that delivers true protection without the complexity or hidden costs. With this investment from Expedition, we have gained an aligned partner with deep expertise and resources to support our continued growth journey.” ThreatSpike was founded by computer scientists Adam and Kate Blake in 2011, following their experience building software and cybersecurity programmes in some of the world’s most sophisticated financial institutions. The company has been bootstrapped with no institutional capital to date, growing rapidly through customer-driven demand. Today, ThreatSpike serves over 200 customers with deployments across 90 countries, including industry leaders in hospitality, industrials, investment management, professional services and other sectors. “ThreatSpike has the highest level of customer referral-driven growth and satisfaction that we have seen across the cybersecurity industry,” said Will Sheldon, Partner at Expedition Growth Capital. “The company has been growing rapidly and profitably without investment and we are proud to partner with Adam and Kate as they fuse software and services into a unique platform that delivers tangible cybersecurity outcomes for sophisticated customers globally.” “Adam and Kate are both impressive technology entrepreneurs,” said Emily Orton, Co-Founder of Darktrace. “I am excited to join them on ThreatSpike’s board and use my experience to help scale the business in this new phase of growth.” The funding will support ThreatSpike’s continued global expansion, including additional hires in engineering, security operations and go-to-market teams. The company will also accelerate its existing innovation roadmap across its platform offerings: ThreatSpike Blue (24/7 managed detection and response) and ThreatSpike Red (unlimited penetration testing). “Since our initial engagement with ThreatSpike in 2016, they have consistently demonstrated themselves to be not only highly competent but also deeply diligent partners in our cybersecurity efforts,” said Lee Scott, Head of Cyber Security at Inchcape Shipping Services. “From the very beginning, ThreatSpike has instilled a strong sense of trust and confidence within our team, enabling us to focus on our core business operations while knowing that our security posture is in expert hands. Over the course of our partnership, ThreatSpike has continually delivered on their promises, going above and beyond to provide innovative and reliable solutions tailored to our evolving needs.”](https://bmmagazine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Labrys-300x169.jpg)
A tech startup founded by two British military veterans has raised $20 million to expand its secure coordination and payments platform for defence, humanitarian and disaster response teams.
Labrys Technologies, co-founded by Royal Marines veteran August “Gus” Lersten and former army linguistics specialist Luke Wattam, developed its flagship platform Axiom to address growing concerns over “shadow IT” in high-risk environments — where official secure systems are bypassed by quick-fix tools like WhatsApp, Signal or Wickr.
The platform has already been approved for use by the UK Ministry of Defence and deployed by NATO member states and humanitarian agencies, including the Ukrainian emergency services during the Kakhovka dam disaster in 2023.
“A lot of the public sector and adjacent organisations rely heavily on chat apps that weren’t built for this purpose,” said Lersten, now CEO of Labrys. “You don’t always know who’s on the other end, there are no checks or task verification, and you can’t ensure compliance. That’s a massive trust and security gap.”
Labrys aims to bridge that gap with a platform that blends military-grade security with real-time coordination tools, user verification, and secure payments infrastructure. The $20 million Series A round was led by Plural, the investment firm co-founded by Wise’s Taavet Hinrikus. The latest raise brings Labrys’s total funding to $25.5 million.
Plural partner Sten Tamkivi said the firm backed Labrys because it addressed a critical blind spot in modern defence and resilience operations. “So much innovation in this space is hardware-driven. But coordination — who’s where, doing what, and being paid — is just as important. Labrys brings order and trust to those chaotic environments.”
Rather than replace encrypted chat apps entirely, Axiom works alongside them. The system can recognise approved participants on a call and alert users to any unfamiliar or unauthorised presence — avoiding scenarios like the recent incident where a journalist was accidentally added to a Signal chat used by US defence officials.
Lersten said the real-world use cases are growing. “We live in a world where the police may need to collaborate with the army, who may need to coordinate with 1,200 civilian volunteers to respond to a flood. If your solution requires a 16-day onboarding process for a secure system, you lose the ability to act quickly.”
The platform also includes tools for HR, task management and compliance monitoring, with payment infrastructure that can support cryptocurrency-based transactions using stablecoins such as USDC and USDT. It is already being used by logistics, aid and development agencies to securely manage teams and transfer funds in real time, even in remote or high-risk locations.
Labrys currently employs 21 people and reports seven-figure annual revenues. It plans to expand its team and scale the platform’s adoption within both public and private sector organisations.
Lersten believes the technology has long-term potential beyond the defence and humanitarian sectors. “We’re starting with high-trust, high-stakes environments, but the need for secure, distributed coordination is growing everywhere. As companies go global and workforces become more mobile, they need systems that can manage verification, workflows, and compliance across borders and time zones.”
The investment comes as UK defence policy undergoes a major overhaul. On Monday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer unveiled the government’s latest defence review, promising to move the UK towards a state of “warfighting readiness” and “mobilise the nation in a common cause”.
For Labrys, the timing could not be better. As public and private organisations rethink how they coordinate people on the ground — whether in war zones, flood zones or supply chains — the company is positioning itself as the connective tissue between security, flexibility and speed.
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Ex-military founders raise $20m to scale secure defence and disaster response platform