Shujinko Scores $7.5M Series A

Shujinko announced today that it has raised a $7.5 million Series A to accelerate the development of its SaaS platform which dramatically reduces the cost and time of building and maintaining compliance in the public cloud. Unusual Ventures led the round with participation from Defy and key angel investors. Shujinko, originally incubated and spun out from Pioneer Square Labs, has raised $10.3 million in total capital to date.

Shujinko's approach unifies cloud compliance know-how with automation to make compliance and audits fast and easy for CIOs, CISOs, and CTOs. Shujinko helps its customers confidently prepare for an audit by automating the vast majority of the technical controls and documentation that historically takes companies thousands of hours to complete. Using Shujinko, customers can achieve SOC 2 compliance in AWS in a matter of days compared to months, and without consuming thousands of hours of critical people time for compliance.

"The current way our customers prepare for their audits is antiquated, time-consuming, and painful," said Scott Schwan, CEO, and co-founder of Shujinko. "We are building software to simplify and automate compliance in the cloud, enabling our customers to save thousands of hours, and accelerating cloud compliance to match the speed of modern cloud development."

Founded by cloud compliance experts, Scott Schwan and Matt Wells, who have led large scale audits at companies like Starbucks, Tommy Bahama, Taco Bell, Dunkin' Donuts, and Red Lobster, Shujinko's mission is to help customers get to market faster by leveraging its SaaS platform to construct secure and compliant cloud environments while simultaneously providing line of sight for their customers' IT audits.

"There's no better team to solve the increasing regulations and compliance demands facing cloud-based enterprises," said John Vrionis, managing partner, Unusual Ventures. "Scott and Matt have experienced the pain of building and maintaining compliance for large retailers-like Starbucks- firsthand and as builders, have a keen understanding of the product that is very much needed in the market. The execution and traction that the Shujinko team has achieved in a year is impressive and we're excited to continue to partner with them during their next phase of growth."

"Shujinko's software is disrupting the huge market for traditional enterprise compliance and we are pleased to partner with them as they scale," said Neil Sequeira, co-founder and managing director of Defy. "Shujinko has provided their customers with a streamlined, effective way for them to rapidly adopt the cloud while maintaining compliance. Shujinko's founders Scott and Matt continue to solve complex problems for leading companies and we are thrilled to continue to support them."

"Raising this round will also enable Shujinko to continue to hire top engineering talent," said Matt Wells, CTO, and co-founder of Shujinko. "If you are interested in solving tough problems and want to work in a vibrant and fast-paced engineering team, we are hiring!"

About Shujinko

Based in Seattle, Shujinko is building a complete cloud compliance solution to enable enterprises to construct multiple cloud environments in an automated, repeatable, and compliant manner. Shujinko makes it fast and easy to deploy, maintain, and update compliant cloud environments. Shujinko is the only software platform that is a complete solution to your IT compliance pain. From implementing security controls to helping you prepare for your audit, Shujinko solves for it all! For more information, please visit: Shujinko.io.

About Unusual Ventures

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinctive advantage to both consumer and enterprise entrepreneurs. Unusual is rethinking the venture capital engagement model by serving entrepreneurs with programmatic and hands-on services, such as Unusual Academy and the Get Ahead Platform, and by engaging with a number of HBCUs and other community-based organizations, including non-profits and children's hospitals, as their limited partner base. Described as a partner versus a top-down stakeholder by its portfolio companies, Unusual is laser-focused on serving exceptional founders, world-class teams, and innovative products. For more information, visit: www.unusual.vc

About Defy

Founded in 2016, Defy is a new venture firm exclusively focused on early Series A, an underserved part of the venture landscape. The firm launched in 2017 after closing its first fund of $151 million. Defy was co-founded by long-term venture capitalists Neil Sequeira and Trae Vassallo, with a goal to invest in entrepreneurs and companies looking to solve complex problems. Defy's focus is to help companies, after seed funding, mature and scale into companies ready for growth capital. The firm's founding team has more than 40 years experience in helping successful entrepreneurs grow companies like The Honest Company, Nest, Elemental, Dropcam and more. For additional information, please visit defy.vc. Follow Defy @defyvc on Twitter.