Threat intel startup SnapAttack lands $8M Series A following Booz Allen spinout

SnapAttack, a threat hunting startup that was this week spun out from IT consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, has secured $8 million in Series A funding.

The startup, which claims to hold the “largest library of labeled threat data in the world,” was created within Booz Allen DarkLabs, a team of researchers, threat hunters, analysts and data scientists that focuses on preventing cyberattacks.

At its core, SnapAttack is a cloud-based software solution that brings together actionable threat intelligence and hacker detection. However, the startup says it brings both offensive and defensive tradecraft together in an integrated workflow that enables community collaboration around threat intelligence, attack emulation and behavioral analytics. This, in turn, helps organizations proactively identify potential security flaws, risks and gaps in their infrastructure before an incident occurs, the company says.

“SnapAttack is poised to empower a new level of collaboration among the next generation of ethical hackers, threat hunters and security researchers providing advanced insights to stop attackers in their tracks,” said Fred Frey, CTO and founding member of the SnapAttack team. “While many of our competitors focus on a single stage of the workflow and most often from a specific offensive or a defensive lens; SnapAttack provides a space to merge both.”

The startup’s Series A funding round was led by Volition Capital, a growth equity fund, with participation from Strategic Cyber Ventures (SCV) and Booz Allen Hamilton, which is retaining a “significant” minority stake in the standalone company.

The investment was completed in connection with SnapAttack’s recently announced spinout from Booz Allen Hamilton, which the startup tells TechCrunch has been in the works over the last few months. “It was important to ensure the spinout and employees joining the team were set up for success, so the funding and spinout process were aligned to ensure that both the corporate entity was properly established, and funding was secured to ensure adequate runway for operations,” the company said.

SnapAttack will use the funding to accelerate platform development to further integrate across security operations processes, manage the entire lifecycle of detection analytics and enhance reporting. It also plans to expand its team (SnapAttack currently has 15 employees, with plans to double over the next 12 months) and grow its customer base across federal and commercial markets.