Phoenix Business Solutions has entered a strategic reseller partnership with CheckRecipient to help the London venture capital-backed startup expand its customer base and accelerate its growth within the legal sector.
CheckRecipient, which was founded in 2013 and counts Travers Smith and Penningtons Manches among its clients, applies machine learning to prevent sensitive information being sent to the wrong recipient through misaddressed emails. Earlier this year it raised $2.7m in a funding round led by Accel and LocalGlobe and co-founder and CEO Tim Sadler told Legal IT Insider: “We’re a VC-backed company and it’s important to grow as quickly as we can and we see working with Phoenix as a great opportunity to enhance our position and accelerate our growth through their network of clients.”
Sadler adds: “We’ve grown 500% since this time last year in terms of most significant metrics including headcount and client base.”
CheckRecipient’s customers can be any that deal with sensitive information over email and it has users across a number of different verticals including the pharmaceutical industry, but its primary focus is the legal and financial sectors. Its software competes against incumbent email security platforms and email encryption software but the fact that it is machine learning as opposed to rules-based means it requires almost no admin or behavioural change by users.
Phoenix, meanwhile, has traditionally focussed on content management solutions and is a key iManage partner but its partnership with CheckRecipient follows the launch in May of a new cybersecurity, compliance and information governance division, as Phoenix moves to diversify its business.
CEO Jason Petrucci told Legal IT Insider: “Our existing client focus is very much around improving the value we provide to existing clients and we will promote CheckRecipient at ILTA and through our existing client channels. GDPR makes it a compelling proposition – if you have measures in place that can prevent people making mistakes and you can demonstrate to the Information Commissioner’s Office that you have those measures in place then you can show you’ve worked out what the risks are and how to mitigate against them.”
He adds: “CheckRecipient is different to other products out there which pop up every time you CC someone. If CheckRecipient pops up, it’s because there is a genuine issue.”
According to the ICO, misaddressed emails were the leading digital security incident in 2016. Sadler said: “It’s like building the castle wall but leaving the door unlocked.”