Sotero, an innovator in comprehensive data protection with an emphasis on data usability, today announced the launch of the first data protection platform providing field-level encryption for data in use, data at rest, and data in motion across on-premise and cloud data stores. Sotero's leading-edge data encryption model enables the enterprise to unlock the full value of its data and empowers SaaS companies and data platform providers to attract and retain customers and downstream partners. Sotero also announced a $5M funding round led by Gutbrain Ventures, with Boston Seed Capital and PBJ Capital, alongside significant partnership traction.

The Sotero Universal Data Protection Platform solves the formerly intractable challenge associated with protecting data in use, a challenge that exposes enterprises, SaaS companies and data platform providers to significant business risk from data loss due to breach or malicious actors. The platform's unique architecture ensures comprehensive data protection in depth with zero impact on application performance, empowering organizations to meet growing compliance and regulatory requirements at both the national and international level.

"I have seen firsthand why engineering teams at SaaS providers and data platforms not only avoid addressing this major gap in data protection-encrypting data in use-but think it is practically impossible. Until now, there simply wasn't a scalable, comprehensive way to protect data in use across complex data environments," said Sotero CEO Purandar Das, a seasoned data management executive who has served as CTO at leading data solution providers such as Infogroup and Epsilon.

Adds Das: "We set out to develop Sotero as an 'always on' platform delivering comprehensive and practical data protection as a service. Our goal was to close the data-in-use gap in data protection, a gap that limits what companies can do with their data while making it hard for SaaS companies and others to rapidly grow their customer base. By simply and efficiently securing data in use, Sotero frees up data engineering, science and application teams to focus on what they do best-innovate and collaborate with customers, embrace the cloud, and create new revenue streams."

With significant momentum in channel partnerships in the financial, pharmaceutical, and SaaS industries, Sotero already serves as the trusted encryption solution for Yellowbrick Data, the hybrid cloud data warehouse company, as well as for global business transformation experts, Holley Holland, among others.

Holley Holland chose to partner with Sotero because its technology dependably secures data no matter where it resides. "Highly regulated industries, such as financial services and healthcare, have no option but to meet stringent requirements for protecting sensitive and critical data. With Sotero, we can confidently assure our clients that their data will be secure whether it is at rest, in use or in transit to the cloud."

"Yellowbrick is excited that Sotero partners with us to provide added data protection across the hybrid and multi-cloud data warehouses that enterprises need," said Allen Holmes, vice president of partnerships at Yellowbrick Data. "Sotero has a unique ability to provide granular data encryption and works across all environments. These capabilities help our clients safely and securely migrate data to the cloud, and share data with customers and partners at the tremendous scale that Yellowbrick makes possible."

"Sotero's ability to encrypt all data in use with the most advanced granular protection establishes a new paradigm for data protection" said Sotero investor and board member Robert Davoli of Gutbrain Ventures. "As a solution, Sotero is not only technically superior but incredibly easy to deploy and use. It doesn't disrupt existing processes or impact the user experience, and yet it offers literally unprecedented levels of security. The experienced team behind Sotero, with its extensive data management pedigree, has really closed the gap."

Until Sotero, enterprise teams, SaaS companies and data platform providers had no easy way to ubiquitously protect operational databases, tackle data protection for secure cloud data transfer and access, or confidently support secure data sharing and analysis. Eliminating the need for multiple data encryption tools, including point solutions such as Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) tools for relational, non-tabular (NoSQL), and file databases, Sotero puts an end to data protection solution sprawl. Sotero utilizes the most sophisticated encryption for data in use, including deterministic, random and format-preserving encryption. Sotero is also compatible with all on-prem, cloud and hybrid data stores, including Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, Hadoop, Avalanche, Snowflake, Yellowbrick, Postgres, and MongoDB, and comes with pre-built integrations to leading access and key management solutions.

About Sotero
Sotero offers the first field-level, universal data protection platform, which scalably encrypts data at rest, in motion and in use, across on-premise and cloud data stores. Enterprise, SaaS and data platform providers choose Sotero to protect their operational databases, secure cloud data access, and safe data analysis and sharing with partners and across international borders. The company is backed by Gutbrain Ventures, Boston Seed Capital and PBJ Capital.
For more information, visit https://www.soterosoft.com/ or follow us on Twitter @SoteroSecure.