$7m · Series A · Cybersecurity · Manchester, UK
Manchester-based Cytix has raised a $7m Series A to accelerate the rollout of its software change-risk platform and reach more enterprise and regulated customers. Northern Gritstone led the round, with existing investors Auriga Cyber Ventures and NPIF II – PXN Equity Finance participating.
Cytix announced the financing in dollars; Northern Gritstone describes the same round as £5m and says it invested £3m.
The platform reads the context around tickets, pull requests and releases, then assesses which software changes carry meaningful security risk, what response is proportionate and what evidence should be retained. Cytix says it connects to tools including Jira, Azure DevOps and GitHub Issues, and made the new platform generally available on the announcement date.
Making security follow every release
The commercial premise is that periodic penetration tests and vulnerability scanners do not tell a security team which of a continuous stream of software changes matters most. Cytix positions its product between the software development lifecycle and the security, risk and compliance functions. A persistent view of the system gives each change context; the platform can prioritise high-risk changes, approve lower-risk ones under policy, trigger validation and preserve an audit trail.
That workflow is particularly relevant to regulated enterprises, where the buyer needs both a security decision and evidence of how it was reached. Cytix sells directly and through managed-service partnerships with NCC Group and KPMG. The company says its technology already powers continuous-testing programmes at both partners, giving it distribution through established providers as well as its own sales motion.
A Cytix case study for health-research organisation Protas reports 244 processed change tickets, 37 testing sequences and five resolved vulnerabilities after the platform was embedded into the customer’s sprint and user-acceptance-testing cycle. Those figures are company-reported, but they illustrate the operating model: security work is triggered by development activity rather than a fixed annual calendar.
From continuous testing to a decision layer
Cytix was founded in 2022 by Ben Armstrong, Thomas Ballin and Matt Milan. In 2024 it raised £1.6m in a round co-led by NPIF II – Praetura Equity Finance and Auriga Cyber Ventures, with SFC Capital also participating. At that point, the British Business Bank listed customers including BNVK, Protas, Netacea and Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
The Series A funds a broader product and enterprise push, but the execution test is sharper than adding another scanner to a security stack. Cytix must show that its risk decisions remain explainable and reliable across different development environments, while its direct and partner channels turn a newly launched platform into repeatable deployments. Northern Gritstone’s continued focus on Manchester-based technology businesses gives Cytix a lead investor aligned with that scaling phase.
