From left: John Killian and Chris McCauley. Image: GreyScout
Led by Act VC and Tribal, the seed round will help the Dublin-based start-up expand its product, engineering and platform teams to meet growing demand.
GreyScout, the Irish software start-up specialising in online brand protection, has secured €3.5m in seed funding to bolster its efforts in protecting consumers and brands ahead of Black Friday and the holiday season.
Founded in 2019 by John Killian and Chris McCauley, GreyScout is based in Dublin and offers a business tool for companies that want to protect their brand against IP infringements and counterfeits.
The start-up’s product scans online domains including marketplaces, search engines, websites, social media channels and web forums to identify and remove policy violations and unauthorised content, alerting clients in real time.
Led by Act Venture Capital and Tribal, the seed round saw participation from Furthr VC, HBAN and Enterprise Ireland.
Andrew O’Neill, principal at Act Venture Capital, said that companies are “struggling to protect” their brands online as they try to maintain visibility and verification across an “ever-growing number of channels”.
“With its automated and scalable platform, GreyScout is delivering real value for its customers and has an opportunity to be the category leader in grey market protection. We’ve known the team for some time and look forward to supporting them as they scale,” O’Neill said.
Since its foundation, the start-up, which accelerated with the NDRC last year, has raised a total of €4.5m. Some of its major clients include Nestlé, Bayer, Netgear, Mayborn and Dorel Maxi-Cosi.
“With this funding, our aim is to expand our product, engineering and platform teams in direct response to the surging demand for more automated brand protection solutions,” said Killian, who is the chief executive of GreyScout.
“Our objective is to empower brand owners with a cost-effective, scalable and user-friendly solution that ensures full control over online activity related to their brand.”
Donnchadh Cullinan, manager of ICT high-potential start-ups with Enterprise Ireland, added that he sees “enormous potential” in the way GreyScout contributes to e-commerce selling and brand protection and that the start-up has shown “tremendous” scalability.
“Today’s funding announcement is another indication of Enterprise Ireland’s support for Ireland-headquartered companies in delivering innovative solutions to global markets.”
10 things you need to know direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of essential sci-tech news.
