• by Jess Nelson , May 25, 2016

Email security startup Agari announced a $22 million Series D funding round on Tuesday to help brands fight phishing attacks.

Agari plans to funnel boosted resources into product development and the expansion of its engineering team.

The cloud-based SaaS solution helps brands prevent data loss from email-based security threats. Founded in 2009, Agari was a core member of the team that created the DMARC email authentication standard for email in 2012 alongside partners PayPal, Yahoo and Google.

DMARC, or Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance, is at the heart of Agari’s technology and enables them to differentiate fraudulent from legitimate uses of email.

The company now claims to analyze more than 6.5 billion email messages per day, identifying more than 2 million malicious URLs and blocking more than 200 malicious emails per month. 

Agari’s product suite includes Agari Enterprise Protection, a solution that prevents spear phishing, and Agari Customer Protection, a solution that identifies email spoofing attacks posing as reputable brands. Agari’s core platform, Agari Email Trust, protects 85% of consumer inboxes in the United States.

Based in Silicon Valley, the email security company’s current client roster includes major technology companies such as PayPal, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Led by Norwest Venture Partners, the investment raises Agari’s total funding to $44.7 million to date. Existing investors Alloy Ventures, Battery Ventures, First Round Capital, Greylock Partners and Scale Venture Partners also participated in the Series D funding round.