Funding to Accelerate Development of AI-Powered Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) Intelligence Layer

PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Trustero, a Silicon Valley innovator in AI-powered Security and Compliance, announced today the close of a $10.35 million Series A funding round led by Bright Pixel Capital (formerly Sonae IM), with participation from existing investors Engineering Capital, Zetta Ventures Partners, and Vertex Ventures US. Trustero is proving that AI can drive real revenue and operational breakthroughs in GRC, a space traditionally dominated by complex, high-cost, and manual processes.

“With Trustero, organizations no longer need to be weighed down by compliance. We offer human-quality, actionable GRC intelligence in seconds, without the high fees,” said Phillip Liu, CEO of Trustero. “The Trust Graph is our secret weapon, allowing us to ingest diverse data sources from GRC platforms, cloud providers, and more, delivering insights instantly.”

Trustero’s founder and CEO, Phillip Liu, is a visionary tech entrepreneur with a proven track record. Formerly, he founded SignalFx, a leader in cloud monitoring solutions, which was acquired by Splunk for over $1 billion. His early experience at Facebook and Opsware further distinguished him as a trusted name in Silicon Valley. Now, he turns his focus to Compliance and Security, seeing a new opportunity to revolutionize the field with AI, bringing agile, cost-effective solutions to an industry struggling with resource-intensive and manual workflows.

Since its founding in 2020, Trustero has grown significantly by helping organizations reduce compliance costs and the time commitments of their senior executives. Companies with complex compliance demands like Chassi, an AI-analytics platform, have experienced the most substantial time and cost savings. They added Trustero AI to their ISO 27001 compliance program in 2024. “For the rest of the company, the time savings was about 10-to-1. For me, it was closer to 100-to-1!” said Chassi CFO, Justin Dooley. “We also saved 75% on our internal audit costs because all the data was ready for the auditors.”

The new capital will be instrumental in driving Trustero’s development of more powerful and accurate AI for security and compliance, scaling operations, expanding market reach, and adding top-tier talent from AI engineering and GRC. Trustero has already made one executive hire since raising their Series A, bringing in George Totev as Chief Information Security Officer. He’s tasked with enhancing the company’s security capabilities and driving innovation in AI-driven GRC solutions.

George comes from Snowflake, where he led the Customer Trust team, managing 30+ certifications and customer security compliance. Previously, he built Atlassian’s Risk & Compliance function and held key roles at Visa, Goldman Sachs, Symantec, and The World Bank.

Trustero’s technology is backed by its patented Trust Graph, which delivers unprecedented speed, accuracy, and cost savings in GRC intelligence. The Trust Graph is the core engine that enables Trustero to answer complex security questions in seconds, perform gap analyses across frameworks like FedRAMP and ISO 27001, and provide powerful audits, evidence mapping, and remediation guidance. This innovation differentiates Trustero from traditional GRC programs that rely on high-cost external consultants or limited manual processes.

“Companies are overwhelmed by the growing compliance demands driven either by evolving regulations or increasing customer compliance requirements. With Trustero, compliance and security teams go beyond simple compliance automation, by having a human-like AI-advisor that interprets not only the controls but also the evidence, in a manner comparable to how a human would,” explains Daniela Coutinho, Manager at Bright Pixel Capital.

Fernando Martins, Director at Bright Pixel Capital, added, “We are excited to support such a strong team, led by an experienced and technical leader, as they enter their next growth phase.”

About Bright Pixel Capital

Bright Pixel Capital, formerly known as Sonae IM, is the technology investment arm of the multinational group Sonae. With special focus on cybersecurity, infrastructure software, retail technologies, business applications and emerging tech, it has a portfolio of more than 60 companies, from early to growth stages. Bright Pixel Capital Capital Capital acts as a partner that brings specialized know-how, global footprint, and a wealth of experience in helping companies from early stage to IPO. Find out more at brpx.com.

About Trustero

Trustero’s AI automates governance, risk, and compliance functions such as compliance audits, security questionnaires, tailored remediation guidance, and third-party risk evaluations. Founded in 2020 by Phillip Liu, Trustero is the first to bring generative AI into the GRC space, enabling organizations to achieve and maintain compliance with unmatched speed, efficiency, and accuracy. For more information, visit Trustero.

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REDDING, Conn., Nov. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — CCi Voice, a leading provider of innovative cloud-based communication solutions in the Northeast, has announced the acquisition of IP Genie, a South Windsor-based phone service company serving municipalities, schools, libraries, nonprofits and businesses throughout Connecticut.

CCi Voice will integrate IP Genie’s advanced technologies into its portfolio, adding enhanced capabilities in VoIP and unified communications (UC) solutions, especially to the municipal marketplace. The acquisition represents a significant step in CCi Voice’s growth strategy, expanding services and team expertise. IP Genie’s President, George J. Taylor Jr. and seven team members will join CCi Voice, bringing its staff to 33.

“This truly is a perfect match,” said Michael LeBlanc, CEO, CCi Voice. He noted synergies between the company cultures, including a focus on extraordinary customer service and innovative technologies – particularly a shared partnership with Sangoma, a leading provider in the UC industry.

“IP Genie’s focus aligns with our mission to deliver top-tier communication services. Customers can expect a seamless transition and even better support as we leverage our strengths,” LeBlanc said.

Another significant benefit is the inclusion of a no-bid state contract through IP Genie’s partnership with the Capital Region Council of Governments. The contract allows municipalities, schools and libraries state-wide to avoid the time and expense of an RFP when buying business telephone service, receiving very low pricing. Municipalities will further benefit from CCi Voice’s video surveillance and access control services.

“Merging with CCi Voice ensures IP Genie’s mission of delivering innovative, reliable solutions continues. This collaboration enhances our offerings and secures a bright future for our customers and employees,” said Taylor Jr. “We’re especially excited to expand into video surveillance and access control.”

The move further positions CCi Voice as an industry leader and aligns with its growth strategy, which includes acquiring similarly-minded telecom companies in the Northeast.

“Our goal is to be the most loved and respected telecom company in the Northeast, and this brings us one step closer,” said LeBlanc.

About CCi Voice
Headquartered in Redding, Conn., CCi Voice delivers reliable and innovative voice and communication solutions to empower businesses of all sizes. Since 1980, CCi Voice has been the go-to company for thousands of customers to install and maintain their critical communications infrastructure. For information, visit CCiVoice.com.

Press Contact: Caryn McBride
Co-Communications Inc.
cmcbride@cocommunications.com

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SOURCE CCi Voice

Strategic merger between the Linux Foundation projects will accelerate collaboration between the sustainable software and data center hardware ecosystems

 NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — The Sustainable and Scalable Infrastructure Alliance (SSIA), a community and open standard for sustainable enterprise and edge data center innovation, today announced it has joined the Green Software Foundation (GSF), an ecosystem of people, standards, tooling and best practices for creating and building green software. As part of the merger, the GSF will launch a Hardware Standards Working Group to develop comparable and reliable standards for sustainable digital infrastructure.

The Hardware Standards Working Group will focus on several things. First, it will collaborate on the next Open19 spec, the SSIA’s open data center hardware project. Second, it will focus on training and education for data center operators on liquid cooling, power systems and reference architectures. Third, it will prioritize further connecting data center infrastructure with the world of software. This will help define how the industry builds tech over the next 10 years, where software responds to the entire stack in the next evolution of carbon aware computing.

“In the past, making tech more sustainable has been largely about making hardware more efficient, with software often relegated to a secondary role,” said Sanjay Podder, Lead for Tech Sustainability Innovation at Accenture and Chair of the Board for the Green Software Foundation. “Uniting hardware and software under one ecosystem with greening software as a major demand driver sets the stage for a future where software leads us in reducing emissions for the ICT sector as a whole.”

All existing SSIA members will be part of the Green Software Foundation Hardware Standards Working Group and have a significant opportunity to benefit from established GSF resources. GSF members will be able to play a role in this larger push for increased compatibility between hardware and software. To kick off the merger and onboarding of SSIA, the GSF will host an initial workshop in Q1 2025 by invite, followed by a series of workshops dedicated to the charter of the Hardware Standards working group.

Addressing the Need for Cross-Domain Collaboration

As the internet evolved, it relied on specialized silos to deliver peak performance across multiple domains (compute, network, storage, power, cooling, control plane, etc.) While that has helped for scaling up, now, especially with the fast-paced growth of AI, it disrupts progress in making software and digital infrastructure more energy efficient and climate responsive without compromising each domain’s ability to scale independently.

No organization has effectively unified these domains to collaborate and help the information and communication technology (ICT) sector meet its sustainability goals. The merger between the SSIA and GSF will create a comprehensive organization to better navigate the interconnectedness of the software and hardware ecosystems in the digital economy. The combination will help dismantle legacy cultures of siloed practices and solutioning, and accelerate the world’s transition to a more efficient use of digital infrastructure technology with the end goal of meeting climate responsibilities.

“Software is more than just a component — it is the essential fabric binding together networking, data centers, silicon, cooling solutions, and end-user devices,” said Sean Mcilroy, Program Manager at the Linux Foundation The coming together of hardware and software will redefine what is possible for sustainable and efficient infrastructure in an AI-driven future.”

“Only through thinking about systems end to end will the ICT sector be able to meet its aggressive climate goals and responsibilities,” said Denise Lee, VP of Engineering Sustainability at Cisco. “One of the first planned projects for the new Hardware Standards working group will be developing mycelium specifications, a set of standardized signals to allow energy, telecoms, cooling, data centers and software applications to communicate and enable efficiencies across the whole tech stack. Now is a great time to get on board and be part of this group and first workshop.”

Sign up to express your interest in joining the Hardware Standards Working Group and upcoming workshops.

About Sustainable and Scalable Infrastructure Alliance
The Sustainable and Scalable Infrastructure Alliance (SSIA) is the world’s leading community-based organization advancing infrastructure technologies and standards that power our digital world in a sustainable, scalable way. Founded in 2016 as the Open19 Foundation, the SSIA is committed to solving the cost, efficiency, and operational challenges of modern data centers with a focus on environmental sustainability and efficient cloud-to-edge deployment models. In 2021, the organization joined the Linux Foundation, bringing its hardware and datacenter innovators community to the world’s largest open-source ecosystem. For more information, visit: new website link.

About Green Software Foundation
The Green Software Foundation (GSF) is a nonprofit organization under the Linux Foundation. It aims to create a trusted ecosystem of people, standards, tooling, and best practices for building green software. Members of the GSF represent a balanced mix of for-profits, nonprofits, and academia from around the globe and include several Fortune Global 500 firms. The Foundation operates by consensus. Four Working Groups — Standards, Policy, Opensource, and Community — currently oversee the Foundation’s ongoing projects.

GSF Contact: Sean Mcilroy – sean@greensoftware.foundation

Media Contact

Peter Moran, Indicate Media, (347) 880-2895, peter@indicatemedia.com, indicatemedia.com

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SOURCE Sustainable and Scalable Infrastructure Alliance