Why We Invested in Vanta
Craft is excited to lead the company’s $110 million Series B.
We’re thrilled to announce that Craft Ventures’ growth fund is leading the $110 million Series B for Vanta, the leading automated security and compliance platform. Existing investors Sequoia and YC are joining us in this round.
Vanta makes it easier for businesses to trust and do business with one another by simplifying the process for earning security certifications like SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR and HIPAA. These certifications are the “gold standard” in the industry for proving that a company takes data protection seriously. After certification, Vanta continues to monitor employee data to keep companies in compliance.
The stakes have never been higher — the cost of a compliance mistake or security breach is huge. Before Vanta, SOC 2 certification was a long and arduous process, with companies hiring expensive consultants to help get them through the audit. As a result, startups tended to delay SOC 2 certification, hampering their ability to sell to larger companies. Vanta’s founder Christina Cacioppo was the first to see that this was a problem that could be solved with software, and set out to create the automated compliance category.
We first heard about Vanta from our favorite referral source: our portfolio companies. The SaaS startups in our portfolio are all eager to move up-market and sell larger deals. A few years ago, more and more of them started using Vanta to do that. All had fantastic feedback on Vanta’s product: they were able to pass their SOC 2 audits quickly and cost-effectively, enabling them to sell into enterprise customers. We met Christina and her team and were immediately convinced that Vanta was a company we wanted to invest in.
Over the past few years, Vanta’s product has evolved from SOC 2 to a full suite of automated compliance tools including ISO 27001, GDPR and HIPAA, allowing them to serve enterprises as well as startups. Most recently, they launched Trust Reports which lets companies share their security status in real-time with prospects and customers. We think Vanta will become increasingly important as it grows to become the trust layer between businesses. The company has a robust product roadmap.
While there has been market turmoil in recent months, we know that innovation doesn’t stop during a downturn, and we have continued to seek out the very best companies to invest in. Vanta is clearly one of those companies: it combines a top-tier growth rate with excellent capital efficiency, as reflected by a superb burn multiple. The best companies don’t have to spend a lot of money to grow fast. Recessions have a way of separating the wheat from the chaff. We believe Vanta has the discipline and business model to thrive in any environment.
Together with Craft Venture Partner J Zac Stein, who will represent us on the board, we’re excited to support Christina and the whole Vanta team on the next stage of their journey.
