Exfinity Venture Partners Announces Partial Exit from CloudSEK, Delivering 13x Returns

Exfinity Venture Partners, an early-stage investor in Deep-Tech & B2B tech, has announced a partial exit from its investment in cybersecurity platform CloudSEK, delivering a 13x multiple on invested capital (MOIC) and an internal rate of return (IRR) of more than 40%. The transaction was executed as a secondary sale to existing investors, while Exfinity continues to retain a meaningful ownership stake in the company.

Exfinity was the first institutional investor in CloudSEK, backing the company during its pre-Series A round and supporting its vision of building a predictive, intelligence-led cybersecurity platform at a time when the market was still largely oriented around reactive threat detection. Since then, CloudSEK has evolved into a comprehensive AI-driven threat intelligence platform, helping enterprises proactively identify and disrupt cyber threats across digital risk, attack surface, and supply chain layers. At its core, the platform models cybersecurity not as isolated alerts but as connected attack paths across identity, exposure, and trust relationships-enabling organizations to predict and disrupt attacks before execution.

CloudSEK has demonstrated strong commercial momentum, having recently crossed USD 15 million in ARR and consistent year-on-year growth. The company has increasingly established itself as a global cybersecurity partner, with over 60% of its net new revenue driven from international markets and the United States emerging as its fastest-growing region. Its customer base includes leading enterprises across banking, telecom, aviation, and digital platforms, reflecting strong product-market fit in complex, large-scale environments.

In early 2025 the company had raised over $20 million across its Series B rounds, including participation from global investors such as Commvault (NASDAQ: CVLT) and Connecticut Innovations Fund (State of Connecticut Fund). Its strategic relationship with Commvault is expected to significantly strengthen CloudSEK’s global go-to-market motion, particularly in the US, enabling deeper enterprise penetration and accelerating its next phase of growth.

The rise of AI-native threats is fundamentally reshaping the cybersecurity landscape, with attackers increasingly leveraging autonomous systems to identify and exploit vulnerabilities across interconnected environments. CloudSEK’s platform is designed for this new paradigm, shifting enterprises from reactive detection to predictive resilience by using AI to simulate, validate, and disrupt attack paths before they materialize. This positioning places the company at the forefront of the next generation of cybersecurity infrastructure.

CloudSEK also represents a compelling example of reverse innovation, built and refined in India and now solving mission-critical cybersecurity challenges for enterprises globally. With

R&D anchored in India and a growing international footprint, the company exemplifies the emergence of India-origin deep-tech platforms scaling successfully across global markets.

“CloudSEK is one of the clearest examples of what Indian deep-tech can achieve on the global stage. Our early conviction in Rahul and his team has been validated by the company’s ARR trajectory, enterprise client quality, and now, by the confidence of a global strategic player like Commvault. This is a calibrated partial exit - we remain invested and excited about what comes next,” said Chinnu Senthilkumar, Managing Partner at Exfinity Venture Partners.

“Exfinity was our first institutional investor and backed us at a time when few were willing to take a bet on a cybersecurity platform emerging from India. Beyond capital, they have been a true partner, supporting us across early customer introductions, follow-on fundraising, and strategic direction as we scaled globally. This journey reflects what long-term, hands-on venture partnership should look like, and we are excited to continue building the next phase together” added Rahul Sasi, Founder & CEO at CloudSEK. 

This transaction marks the latest in a series of liquidity events for Exfinity’s 2016 vintage Fund II, including full exits from Kinara.ai and Locus, and a prior partial exit from Pixis. The fund has already crossed key DPI milestones through these exits, and this secondary adds further distributions to Limited Partners, while retaining meaningful upside across the remaining portfolio. These outcomes reinforce Exfinity’s belief in building globally competitive deep-tech companies from India.

About Exfinity Ventures

Exfinity Venture Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on backing category-defining startups in deep-tech, enterprise technology, semiconductor, AI, and frontier technology sectors. The firm invests in companies building globally relevant technologies from India and has backed several high-impact startups across enterprise and industrial innovation.

To know more about Exfinity, visit https://www.exfinityventures.com/

CloudSEK is now a part of NetApp’s 5th Cohort of Start-ups

NetApp announced the launch of its fifth cohort of start-ups as part of the NetApp Excellerator, the company’s accelerator program. CloudSEK, an AI-based Digital Risk Management enterprise along with 4 other Data-driven enterprise start-ups were selected so as to be a part of a strategic partnership that develops more effective solutions for their customers.

As part of its previous four cohorts, the NetApp Excellerator program has coached 24 start-ups and they are set to accelerate a new batch of data-driven enterprises.

Apart from CloudSEK, other start-ups that have made it to the fifth cohort are Senseforth.ai, Lightwing, Coralogix and Curl Analytics. The core technology that NetApp is focusing on for this cohort is data.

Hence, all five start-ups, selected to be part of the fifth cohort, work with data. Being a part of the cohort helps CloudSEK not just with the development of its technology but also with the expansion of the organization’s market coverage.

Being a member of NetApp Excellerator’s cohort assures technical and business mentorship, the support to develop products and solutions, permission to use NetApp’s technologies, co-working space if need be along with HR and legal support.

Apart from this unparalleled support, the program helps CloudSEK and the other start-ups connect with potential investors, partners, and customers and sponsor a POC or offer an equity-free grant of $15,000.

 

High commission of India in Singapore Handpicked CloudSEK to Attend Singapore Innovation Summit

AI-powered cybersecurity startup CloudSEK has been selected to showcase their solution at the Indian Singapore Entrepreneurship Bridge 2019. CloudSEK is among the few Indian startups that have been selected by the Indian High Commission to attend the event and showcase their solution.

The delegation that has been handpicked by the High Commission includes CloudSEK and a few other elite cybersecurity startups from across the country. These startups will be accompanying the DSCI (Data Security Council of India) to the event. The objective of this dedicated delegation is to showcase the capabilities of Indian cybersecurity companies to key stakeholders from across the ASEAN region.

Titled “India-Singapore: The Next Phase”, the two-day Business and Innovation Summit is the first of its kind, having been organized as part of a broader industrial collaboration between the governments of India and Singapore. In fact, the High Commission of India has organized the event in partnership with Indian Government agencies like DSCI and Singaporean Chambers of Commerce, professional associations and innovation labs. The event will take place between 9th to 11th September at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre in Singapore.

The event will not only see some fantastic speakers like Katherine Abrat (COO, Arkkan Capital), Ritu Arora (CEO, Allianz Investment Management), and Abhinay Chaturvedi (Partner, Accel India); but it will also be attended by business, technology, and government leadership across both India and Singapore. The event is a fantastic opportunity for emerging Indian startups to connect with investors, corporates, and government agencies from both Singapore and India — enabling them to take their startup to the next level.

Here’s what CloudSEK founder and CTO Rahul Sasi had to say about their selection, “It’s quite an honour to be chosen by the High Commission represent India’s cybersecurity skills at a regional level. ASEAN is one of the most promising markets for startups right now and exhibiting our cutting-edge product on an international stage will help us gain access to an exciting market. The summit is also the first of its kind to be organized as a partnership between the Governments of India and Singapore which makes it all the more meaningful that we get to represent our country’s technology capabilities at this forum. This is also a great opportunity for us to connect with like-minded investors, prospective clients, and government agencies in the ASEAN region.”

AI-Powered Startup CloudSEK is Changing the Campus Recruitment Game With Its Unique Hiring Strategy

Meet Mayank Satnalika. Just like any other engineering student in his first year, he was focussed more on finding the right friends than he was on his books. Unlike most Indian engineering students, however, Mayank was studying IT engineering because he actually wanted to. He’d always been fascinated by computer science and knew that’s where he wanted to pursue a career.

Luckily for Mayank, he got a life-changing opportunity at the end of his first year at VIT. He was hired by AI-powered digital risk management startup CloudSek as part of their “Earn While You Learn” program.

As part of this program, CloudSek offers a summer internship to a cohort of college students every year. You might be thinking, what’s so special about that, most companies offer student internships. But CloudSek doesn’t stop there. It gives these candidates the opportunity to continue working for them remotely even after the internship is over and they’re back in college. Not only that, the students are actually paid a generous monthly stipend of Rs. 25000 while they work remotely with CloudSek. And once they graduate, they end up getting a full-time offer to work with the startup.

What former students have loved most about the program is the fact that it focuses on enabling learning. So students have a fair bit of freedom in deciding what kind of projects they want to do. As Mayank says, “What I loved most was the freedom to work on any problem or research you find interesting. My team lead always encouraged me to try out unconventional approaches to solving problems. In fact, I often ended up reading and implementing the latest research papers to solve important issues. To be honest, as an intern, this kind of learning opportunity was absolutely exhilarating."

Yet another interesting thing about the program is that it focusses more on your ability than on your degree. CloudSek has an initial screening that tests the students’ technical skills, followed by a soft skills-based round. As Rahul Sasi, Founder -  CTO, CloudSek says, “Given that we invest a lot of time and resources in the students who are part of the program, the application process is fairly rigorous. At the same time, we make sure that the only criteria for a student to make it is their innate ability, rather than their educational background or past experience.”

Finally, unlike a lot of remote projects that end up exploiting college students, CloudSek’s program ensures that students earn a generous stipend while working from campus. It relieves the burden of their education loans while simultaneously allowing them to build real-world tech skills, something their peers simply don’t have access to.

After the phenomenal success of their first cohort, CloudSek is once again hiring students to be part of the program this year. The startup is looking at hiring five students with extraordinary potential and the ability to pick up skills quickly. Rahul says, “Many outsiders were sceptical when we first launched the program. They thought we were wasting our time and resources by investing so much in college students. However, the kind of phenomenal hires we’ve had through this program has convinced us that this can be a great hiring model for the tech industry as a whole, especially for high-growth startups like ours. Using the lessons from our previous cohorts, we are looking to make the program even bigger and better this year.”

CloudSEK Appoints Tenable’s Sales Leader Bhaskar Nandi as VP and North Region Head

CloudSEK, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) -powered Digital Risk Management enterprise has announced the appointment of Bhaskar Nandi, as Vice President and North Region Head (India North/East, Bangladesh, and Nepal). In his new role, he will be driving CloudSEK’s direct and channel sales efforts, with a focus on expanding adoption of CloudSEK Platform.

[caption id="attachment_131951" align="alignleft" width="675"] Bhaskar Nandi[/caption]Bhaskar comes with more than 17 Years of work experience in Cyber Security across organizations like Tenable, Deloitte & IBM.

CloudSEK offers cybersecurity threat intelligence platform powered by machine learning and promises to build a risk-free digital security ecosystem. It has been helping organizations by providing them timely, specific and actionable intelligence, thereby preventing digital security infractions. The start-up promises to build a risk-free cybersecurity ecosystem in Asia. The client tail includes National and International companies like Swiggy, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, L&T, Ooredoo, NPCI.

CloudSEK’s founder Rahul Sasi and CEO Sourabh Issar are reaping the benefits of increasing awareness about cybersecurity, which has translated into the company tripling its revenues in the last six months. It has rapidly gained prominence in Asia and the middle east with marquee names like HDFC Bank, Ooredoo, Axis Bank, Federal Bank, NPCI, OLAM, L&T, Go-Jek, Bank Bazaar in its client list.

With investors like Exfinity Ventures, IDFC Parampara, Eastern, StartupXseed and former Wipro/ Infosys executives on board, it is now working to establish itself in North American markets, with the largest strategy consulting company as its charter client. Its unique Machine Learning led approach to cybersecurity, is finding a lot of takers in the global markets which are reeling the skilled cybersecurity resource shortage

Cyber Security Startup CloudSEK Raises Fresh Funding from IDFC-Parampara

Artificial Intelligence based Digital Risk Management and cybersecurity platform provider CloudSEK has raised further funding from IDFC Parampara. Founded in 2015 by renowned cyber security expert Rahul Sasi, the company had raised  2.5 M USD in pre-series A till date.

Currently it has investors like Exfinity Ventures, former Infosys board member V Balakrishnan, StartupXseed Ventures (who recently exited their Cyber-security investment, ShieldSquare), ME Meeran trust.

CloudSEK will leverage the freshly raised funds to evolve its product Xvigil. Furthermore, it will also use the funds to expand its footprints in India and South East Asia. After establishing itself as a preferred cybersecurity solution in the financial, e-commerce and transportation sector, CloudSEK now plans to target the pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals and retail industry. Axis Bank, Federal Bank, NPCI, OLAM,  L&T, Go-Jek, HDFC Bank, Bank Bazaar are in CloudSEK’s client list.

CloudSEK is the brainchild of Rahul Sasi and was founded in 2015 with its headquarter in Singapore and an operational center in Bengaluru, India. The Brand offers cybersecurity platform powered by machine learning and promises to build a risk-free digital security ecosystem. It has been helping organizations by providing them timely, specific and actionable intelligence, thereby preventing digital security infractions. The start-up promises to build a risk-free cyber security ecosystem in Asia. The exclusive gamut of cyber security tools offered by CloudSEK is all set to make India ready for what is being assumed to be the next phase of the digital revolution. The client tail includes leading banks, e-commerce and technology organizations in its clientele. Federal Bank, Go-Jek, Bank Bazaar, HDFC Bank and Grab Taxi are in CloudSEK’s client list, five of which are unicorns.

“Cloudsek has developed a much needed product to scan and monitor the dark web, deep web and surface web threats. They provide actionable intelligence leveraging their AI/ML based deep technology and domain expertise, that helps protect the digital assets of any enterprise, including the infrastructure. This fits in very well with IDFC-Parampara’s fund theme of technology IP/innovation based investments.” said Jatin Desai, General Partner of IDFC-Parampara Fund.

CloudSEK’s founder Rahul Sasi and CEO Sourabh Issar spoke about the funding, and the company’s plans going forward:

With the increasing awareness about CyberSecurity, we are seeing urgency in the demand, which has translated into us doubling our revenues in the last 4 months. This vote of confidence from IDFC Parampara is a welcome validation of this momentum and acceleration that we have been witnessing – said CloudSEK CEO, Sourabh Issar.

CloudSEK offers cybersecurity platform powered by machine learning and promises to build a risk-free digital security ecosystem. X-Vigil, CloudSEK’s SaaS-based flagship product is an outcome of the company’s 4 years of diligent research and development efforts.

AI based Infosec Assesment Startup 'CloudSEK' Raises ₹14 Crores from Exfinity Venture and StartupXseed

Singapore and Bengaluru-based CloudSEK, an information security (Infosec) risk management SaaS-based startup, has raised ₹14 Crores (~ US$1.96 million) in its Pre-Series A investment led by Exfinity Venture Partners and StartupXseed.

CloudSEK, which provides intelligence needed to tackle online threats, will leverage the freshly raised funds to evolve its flagship product XVigil, a unified risk management platform. The company will also use the funds to expand its footprints in India and South East Asia. After establishing itself as a preferred cybersecurity solution in the financial, e-commerce and transportation sector, CloudSEK now plans to target the pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals and retail industry.

Founded in 2015 by Rahul Sasi and Sourabh Issar (Left to Right in picture above), CloudSEK offers cybersecurity platform powered by machine learning and promises to build a risk-free digital security ecosystem.

The startup entails Rahul’s journey from being a college dropout to becoming a successful tech entrepreneur. Being criticized for dropping out of engineering college and predicted for a career failure, Rahul continued his journey as an ethical hacker and security expert through his successful career. Before co-founding CloudSEK, he has worked with Citrix Systems, one of the biggest names in the software industry.

Commenting on the post-funding plan Sourabh Issar, the CEO, CloudSEK, said; “Being a product-only organization, our revenues are primarily generated through license sales. This investment for us is a vote of confidence from some of the eminent architects of the Indian IT Industry. We plan to utilize the funds to develop the existing products and expand our presence in India as well as South East Asia."

X-Vigil, CloudSEK’s SaaS-based flagship product is an outcome of the company’s four years of diligent research and development efforts. Cloudmon, another product by CloudSEK, tracks network and application related security issues associated with the client. The start-up was seed funded in 2015 by M.E. Meeran Foundation, the investment arm of Kochi-based Eastern Group.

"The dark web is moving faster than Law Enforcement agencies. The losses due to cyber-related crime, worldwide, is estimated to be upwards of USD 600 Billion. Globally, Cyber Attacks are on the rise and about 500,000+ Cyber Attacks have already been reported in India in 2018. Many of these attacks are targeted towards BFSI networks, Government Departments and may potentially end up targeting power grids, oil and gas pipelines which have the potential to cripple any economy. With companies increasingly adopting cloud solutions, CloudSEK's unique non-intrusive solution can detect digital footprint leakages of any enterprise in real-time helping the CSOs to strengthen the Cyber-Defence," said Chinnu Senthilkumar, General Partner & CTO, Exfinity Venture Partners.

Speaking of its investment, Mr. Ravi Thakur, Partner, StartupXseed Ventures said, “Technology is redefining the way Risk Management is being practiced and CloudSEK has forayed into that space with applications in Cyber Security. Looking at their product, clientele and growth rate, they have struck the right chord to crack the business. Moreover, what fascinated us is their way of solving the problem which is very effective and scalable at large along with strong team background and execution capabilities.”

CloudSEK already includes leading banks, e-commerce and technology organizations in its clientele. Federal Bank, Go-Jek, Bank Bazaar, HDFC Bank and Grab Taxi are in CloudSEK’s client list, five of which are unicorns.

Talking about the association with CloudSEK, Shalini Warrier, CFO, Federal Bank, said, “Federal Bank and CloudSEK have had a relationship since July 2017 and it is a relationship that has grown over the last few months. Cybersecurity is a key risk for the financial services industry and CloudSEK has played an important role in mitigating some of the risks we experience in the fast-changing digital world. Through this association, we have been successful in unearthing potential points of compromise in our security posture and they have worked with us to address these concerns. Their threat intelligence has been very useful to us. We wish Rahul and CloudSEK the very best in their future endeavors.”

"It has been a great experience working with the team at CloudSEK, their focus on building a Machine Learning driven Digital Risk Management platform is commendable,” said Sameer Ratolikar, EVP & CISO of the largest stable Indian Private Sector Bank, while speaking about the relationship with CloudSEK.

CloudSEK has been helping organizations by providing them timely, specific and actionable intelligence, thereby preventing digital security infractions. The start-up promises to build a risk-free cyber security ecosystem in Asia. The exclusive gamut of cyber security tools offered by CloudSEK is all set to make India ready for what is being assumed to be the next phase of the digital revolution.

Exfinity Venture Partners is an early-stage frontier technology fund backing enterprise companies (B2B) in India and across the India-US business corridor. With established connections and ecosystem across India and USA, Exfinity focuses on pioneering startups that are ready to scale across the global stage.

About StartupXseed, it is a Seed-stage VC firm founded in 2015 by bureaucrat-turned-VC investor Mr. B.V. Naidu. It is backed by former Infosys board members Mr. V Balakrishnan and Mr. TV Mohandas Pai, along with Mr. Ramakrishnan (Ex CDO and M&A head – HCL), Mr. Siddhartha Mookerji (Founder – Software Paradigm International) and Mr. Ravi Thakur (Entrepreneur). It invests from Aaruha Technology Fund, whose focus is Deep Technology Start-ups creating products for B2B Businesses.