Ploy raises £2.5m led by Osney Capital to automate identity, governance and security for mid-market firms

UK cybersecurity startup Ploy has raised £2.5m to tackle the growing threat of identity-based breaches, with the round led by Osney Capital and participation from Superseed, Tiny.vc, Rule30, and several high-profile angels including Johnathan Scudder (ForgeRock), Alastair Paterson and James Chappell (Digital Shadows), Mark Ryan (ZScaler), Jonathan Tom (Rapid7), Tony Pepper and Neil Larkins (Egress), and Charles Delingpole (ComplyAdvantage).

With 80% of cyberattacks now exploiting identity, and each critical alert consuming an average of 11 person-hours, companies are overwhelmed by identity complexity. Ploy was founded by Jacob Prime and Harry Lucas, former Metomic leaders, to automate identity processes such as onboarding, offboarding, and access reviews across SaaS, cloud, and collaboration tools.

Its AI native platform enables real-time, autonomous access governance through ‘Luna’, an embedded identity agent that spots anomalies and manages permissions intelligently. Ploy’s system can be deployed in under 20 minutes via pre-built integrations and workflows, giving security teams visibility across every app and user.

Targeting the underserved mid-market of companies with up to 5,000 employees, Ploy has already secured over 1 million access entitlements and identified more than 26,000 SaaS applications used across its customers, which include Payfit, Not On The High Street, Welcome to the Jungle, ComplyAdvantage, Liberis, and Times Higher Education.

The new funding will accelerate product development and go-to-market expansion as demand for automated identity governance grows globally.

Identity sprawl has become a significant issue for organisations of all shapes and sizes, but particularly those with modern technology stacks; which often comprise hundreds, or even thousands, of SaaS applications. This breadth causes fragmented and distributed access and ownership of identity, without unified visibility or control, and is typically enabled using role-base access controls. Ploy’s just-in-time approach to access, making all access temporary by default, and identifying risks centrally in real-time, is becoming the only approach that scales with modern threats, ways of working and technology stacks.

Joshua Walter, Partner at Osney Capital

With 80% of breaches now stemming from identity, boards are realising it’s the biggest area they need to prioritise in their security strategy. Spreadsheet-based access tracking is now a legal and security liability. They need real-time visibility into who has access to what, before attackers or regulators find the gaps. That’s exactly the problem Ploy solves.

Jacob Prime, Co-founder & CEO

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