Cigent Technology, a Fort Myers, Fla.-based provider of a solution to protect businesses and individuals against any threat vector, closed a $7.6M Series A funding.

Backers included In-Q-Tel, CyberJunction, WestWave Capital, and several individual investors including:

• Avie Tevanian, formerly Apple Inc.’s Chief Software Technology Officer
• Tom Paquin, Co-Founder of Netscape and Mozilla
• Brendan O’Halloran, former Vice-Chair at TD Securities
• William Cyr, Chief Executive Officer at NASDAQ-listed Freshpet
• Alan Pollard, President – Product and Innovation at The Vitality Group
• Francois Millard, Senior Vice President/Chief Actuarial Officer at The Vitality Group
• Dr. Tony Martin, President and Founder of Strategic Solutions Unlimited
• Gary Wipfler, Treasurer, Apple Inc.

CyberJunction’s Thomas DiBenedetto, and Brendan O’Halloran have also joined the Cigent board of directors. DiBenedetto, who leads CyberJunction, is also Chairman of Jefferson Waterman International, a Washington D.C.-based international consulting firm and a partner in the Fenway Sports Group LLC (FSG), the parent company of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club.

The company intends to use the funds to commercialize and bring to market Cigent Data Defense.

Led by Bradley Rowe, CEO, Cigent is an In-Q-Tel-backed cybersecurity company that leverages software and hardware products to prevent network, endpoint, and cloud-based data infiltration even after a network has been breached. Cigent Data Defense, which is comprised of D³E® (Dynamic Data Defense Engine™) Windows®-based software and its self-defending Secure Solid-State Drives (SSDs), aims to prevent ransomware, data theft, and insider theft by placing protection as close to the data as possible – inside the firmware of storage devices – and adds Zero Trust multi-factor authentication that protects data at the endpoint, on the network, in the cloud, or when shared with trusted users.