Led · Seed · Jan 2021

Lunio offers a platform that automatically identifies and removes bots and fake ad engagements across clients’ paid channels, giving performance marketers actionable traffic-quality insights. Its tools surface campaign-, keyword-, location- and placement-level data to help marketers concentrate ad spend on higher-quality audiences with genuine conversion potential. The company works with over 1,000 businesses globally, including M&S, Hugo Boss and Sykes Cottages. Lunio says the funding will be used to target new sectors and accelerate global growth, including expansion into Europe and the US. Founded in 2018 by Neil Andrew, the business moved its headquarters to Manchester last year and featured on the GM 125 Rising Stars of Business list. Lunio builds algorithms that run client-side in users’ browsers to detect and block invalid or fake clicks across ad networks such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and TikTok. The platform combines data analysis and cybersecurity techniques and leverages WebAssembly for near‑native execution speed, which the company says is faster than traditional JavaScript approaches. Lunio says it protects more than 1,000 customers covering over 10,000 individual advertising accounts. The company declined to share revenue figures but states it operates on a best‑in‑class burn multiple and expects to remain insulated from forward‑looking challenges. Lunio plans to grow headcount from 43 employees to around 55 by the end of Q1 2023 to accelerate go‑to‑market efforts in Europe and North America. The founders — Neil Andrew, Segev Hochberg and Alex Winston — started the company to reinvest savings from blocked fake clicks back into top‑performing campaigns. The pandemic and subsequent economic pressure on ad budgets increased demand for Lunio’s product, according to the company. PPC Protect is a U.K.-based cybersecurity startup focused on preventing click fraud that abuses the pay-per-click advertising model. Its core product is designed to detect and block fraudulent clicks on PPC campaigns. The company announced a £2 million (approximately $2.7M) seed funding round. The article states the funding is intended to help businesses protect against click fraud. No revenue, user metrics, investors, or prior funding rounds were disclosed in the article. The article does not specify additional product roadmaps or expansion plans beyond the stated purpose of the seed funding.

Participated · Equity · Jan 2021

L7 Defense is a Jersey City, N.J.-based cybersecurity technology company that provides the Ammune™ enterprise-grade API security solution. Ammune protects APIs and API-based applications from related threats using unsupervised AI/ML technology. The solution is deployed across financial, telecom and SaaS sectors in North America, Europe and APAC. The company is led by co-founder and CEO Dr. Doron Chema and co-founder and VP Business Development Yisrael Gross. L7 intends to use its recent financing to solidify technological leadership, boost marketing and business development activities, and extend its market reach.