Article

SafeBase: The elegant Smart Trust Center that revolutionizes security & compliance reviews

by Hilarie Koplow-McAdams, Vanessa Larco and Mustafa NeemuchwalaMar 10, 2022


The wave of digital transformation has been active for almost two decades with elevated acceleration over the past two years. This increased velocity in cloud software adoption has exacerbated cybersecurity risk for companies as well. Managing the risk of cyber-attacks has become top of mind for not just security and compliance teams, but also executives and board members. Understandably, identifying risks is becoming a key part of software purchasing and technical integration decisions. Coupling this trend with the rise of diverse industry standards, certifications, and regulations, the vendor security review process has become excessively laborious.

We’ve heard from buyers, vendors, and partners how static, manual, opaque, time-consuming, and high-friction security review processes are with multi-departmental stakeholders. The processes include multiple back-and-forth email threads, attachments of reports and certifications, annotations and follow up calls to discuss different documents, extensive custom/unique security questionnaires, NDA requirements, etc. We believe this key point of friction needs to be solved to enable and accelerate digital transformation.

When we first came across SafeBase’s security portal, we were stunned by its simplicity and elegance in solving this pain point. We quickly met with co-founders Al & Adar, who deeply impressed us by the comprehensiveness of their vision for a single system that streamlines security reviews by:

  • Providing a Security Portal for each customer, e.g., security.bigcommerce.com or securitytrust.snyk.io

  • Automating buyer-vendor exchanges, e.g., NDA provisioning or requests for documents

  • Holding stakeholders accountable through cross-team workflow visibility

  • Maintaining real-time status updates through integration with security & compliance tools

  • Empowering sales teams with productivity integrations and better visibility into pipeline

  • Keeping buyers informed of ongoing security status changes and updates

Today, we are excited to announce that NEA led SafeBase’s $18M Series A financing. SafeBase is rapidly becoming the standard for a Smart Trust Center, with an impressive, diverse, and rapidly growing list of customers including Instacart, LinkedIn, Modern Health, BigCommerce, ServiceTitan, Snyk, Abnormal Security, Vercel, Clickup, Mindbody, Attentive, and dozens of others. SafeBase has gained most of its customers through word-of-mouth and virality, as software evaluators see a partner’s SafeBase Security Portal, become enchanted by its elegance, and want one for themselves.

We are inspired by how SafeBase rewards companies of all sizes who believe in transparently maintaining good security and compliance practices given the dynamic world we live in. As security compliance vendor Vanta highlights, SafeBase is an integral way to turn compliance into a growth strategy.

We’re thrilled to partner with Al, Adar, Macy, and the rest of the SafeBase team on their journey to revolutionize security and compliance reviews for companies of all sizes, across industries, and around the world. Learn more about the team and vision here.

The information provided in this blog post is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to be investment advice, or recommendation, or as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any fund or investment vehicle managed by NEA or any other NEA entity. New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is a registered investment adviser with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However, nothing in this post should be interpreted to suggest that the SEC has endorsed or approved the contents of this post. NEA has no obligation to update, modify, or amend the contents of this post nor to notify readers in the event that any information, opinion, forecast or estimate changes or subsequently becomes inaccurate or outdated. In addition, certain information contained herein has been obtained from third-party sources and has not been independently verified by NEA. The companies featured in this post are for illustrative purposes only, have been selected in order to provide an example of the types of investments made by NEA that fit the theme of this post and are not representative of all NEA portfolio companies. The company founders or executives or any other individuals featured or quoted in this post are not compensated, directly or indirectly, by NEA but may be founders or executives of portfolio companies NEA has invested in through funds managed by NEA and its affiliates. Any statements made by founders, investors, portfolio companies, or others in the post or on other third-party websites referencing this post are their own, and are not intended to be an endorsement of the investment advisory services offered by NEA.
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About the authors

Hilarie Koplow-McAdams

Hilarie joined NEA as a Venture Partner in 2017 and is focused on enterprise software and services. A software industry veteran, Hilarie spent three decades at growth-stage companies in operating and board roles. Most recently, Hilarie was President at New Relic. Prior to that, she was President at Salesforce, responsible for the company’s worldwide sales organization. She started her career at Oracle and Intuit. Hilarie has a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from Mills College.
Hilarie joined NEA as a Venture Partner in 2017 and is focused on enterprise software and services. A software industry veteran, Hilarie spent three decades at growth-stage companies in operating and board roles. Most recently, Hilarie was President at New Relic. Prior to that, she was President at Salesforce, responsible for the company’s worldwide sales organization. She started her career at Oracle and Intuit. Hilarie has a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from Mills College.

Vanessa Larco

Vanessa joined NEA as a Partner in 2016 and focuses on enterprise and consumer investing. She has led investments in Assembled, Kindred, Rewind AI, Cleo, Evernow, Rocket.Chat, and Mejuri, among others. She is also a board observer at Forethought, SafeBase, Orby AI, Granica, Modyfi, and HEAVY.AI. She was a board observer at Robinhood until its IPO in 2021. Prior to Venture, she led product teams at Box, Twilio, Disney, and Xbox.
Vanessa joined NEA as a Partner in 2016 and focuses on enterprise and consumer investing. She has led investments in Assembled, Kindred, Rewind AI, Cleo, Evernow, Rocket.Chat, and Mejuri, among others. She is also a board observer at Forethought, SafeBase, Orby AI, Granica, Modyfi, and HEAVY.AI. She was a board observer at Robinhood until its IPO in 2021. Prior to Venture, she led product teams at Box, Twilio, Disney, and Xbox.

Mustafa Neemuchwala

Mustafa joined NEA’s Technology team in 2021. His investment interests across stages include AI, cybersecurity, developer, data, technically differentiated application software, and fintech. Before NEA, Mustafa advised on tech M&A deals at Qatalyst Partners across developer, cybersecurity, data, infra, fintech, deep tech, and consumer internet. After early years in Tokyo and Mumbai, Mustafa moved to the Dallas suburbs and is a proud Texan. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, studying fundamental and quantitative finance, liberal arts, computer science, and mathematics.
Mustafa joined NEA’s Technology team in 2021. His investment interests across stages include AI, cybersecurity, developer, data, technically differentiated application software, and fintech. Before NEA, Mustafa advised on tech M&A deals at Qatalyst Partners across developer, cybersecurity, data, infra, fintech, deep tech, and consumer internet. After early years in Tokyo and Mumbai, Mustafa moved to the Dallas suburbs and is a proud Texan. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, studying fundamental and quantitative finance, liberal arts, computer science, and mathematics.