Highly sought-after federal software contracts frequently come with a hidden cost: Achieving government SaaS security compliance, known as FedRAMP, can take years and require substantial resources.
Achieving this certification typically takes up to three years and costs more than $3 million, covering everything from security operations engineer salaries to security audits, according to Irina Denisenko, CEO of Knox.
Denisenko (pictured above, second from right) launched Knox, a federal managed cloud provider, last year with a mission to help software vendors speed through this security authorization process in just three months, and at a fraction of what it would cost to do it on their own.
On Thursday, Knox said it has raised a $6.5 million seed round led by Felicis, with participation from Ridgeline and FirsthandVC.
Denisenko decided to embark on this journey after she learned firsthand the challenges of obtaining FedRAMP. Class, an education startup where she served as COO, had secured a contract to sell its software to the U.S. Air Force. And instead of waiting three years and spending millions, Denisenko helped Class.com buy CoSo Cloud, a company that was already FedRAMP certified and was managing Adobe’s federal cloud.
