We are excited to announce that Matchstick Ventures Fund II has completed an investment in Haekka. Haekka is a cyber security and privacy training platform that integrates into the tools businesses use on a daily basis. 

Background: Cyber security and privacy issues are becoming a day-to-day struggle for many businesses. Beyond the headlines about major breaches at Fortune 500 companies, critical infrastructure, and government agencies, 43 percent of cyber attacks are aimed at small businesses — but only 14 percent are prepared to defend themselves. 95 percent of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error, with the costs of cyber crime expected to reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which accelerated the growth of remote workforces, has created more and even easier targets for cyber criminals. Even still, current security training mostly doesn’t work. It’s often delivered annually, with dated, unengaging information that offers only a single incentive - do this or your manager will be upset. 

Company Specifics: Haekka is a headless security awareness platform that is rethinking the model for how companies train their staff on cyber security and privacy. By offering content that is focused on modern experiences employees face everyday, embedding their training into the tools employees use on a day-to-day basis, and incentivizing users to learn, Haekka is able to inform the decisions employees make in order to prevent major security incidents. 

With an initial focus on Slack, Haekka is currently providing micro-training that not only engages and informs employees about privacy and cyber security risks, but also fulfills compliance training requirements for HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2, CCPA and more. Rather than an all-day, sit-down session once a year, Haekka meets employees where they already are, providing real-time training for real-world concerns.

We met the team at Haekka serving as their lead mentor in the TechStars Boulder program. Haekka's co-founders have a combined 20+ years of securing sensitive data for thousands of companies, and have personally felt the pain of cyber attacks themselves. They have a desire to level the playing field between cyber attackers and their potential victims, and believe their knowledge of both modern technology and cyber security regulations make them uniquely positioned to solve this issue.