Story of a longlasting relationship between founder & investor
With Tony Pepper, CEO & Co-founder Egress
Posted
In this fireside chat, Tony Pepper, CEO and co-founder of Egress, and Ed Lascelles, Partner at AlbionVC, sit together to reflect on their longstanding partnership, Tony’s entrepreneurial journey, and Egress’s growth story.
Egress provides security software for e-mail, secure messaging, document and email classification, and associated technologies to assist secure file sharing and handling.
It is the only cloud email security platform to use an adaptive security model, by combining actionable intelligence with an adaptive security model, allowing their customers to defend against attacks and breaches before they happen.
It has come a long way since AlbionVC first invested. At the time the company had a small team of 12 employees and a huge ambition.
Today Egress has over 2,500 customers across multiple sectors from government to healthcare and financial services, generates £40 million ARR with 84% gross margin.
Tony initially didn’t envision himself as an entrepreneur but was drawn to building great businesses with strong cultures.
In this episode Tony discusses how he has maintained company culture as the business scaled. He reflects on the company’s key milestones and the ongoing need to remain adaptable in the dynamic field of cybersecurity. He shares the secret to a successful US expansion, emphasising the importance of leadership and cultural fit.
I think they really do believe in and buy into long term relationships. It allows you to go on a journey. As much as the team, the tech and the management team are a big part of what’s allowed us to be successful, there is absolutely no doubt that I would put Ed alongside those as being equally important to us.
Tony Pepper, CEO Egress
Ed and Tony reflect on how their relationship has evolved over the years and share some personal anecdotes.
These are markets where you have early players like Microsoft and, more recently, Proofpoint, Mimecast, and other Nasdaq-listed, typically West Coast type funds. Yet here’s a British software company that’s competing and winning.
Ed Lascelles, Partner AlbionVC
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