Boxphish Secures BGF Backing To Accelerate Growth

Boxphish – a Leeds-headquartered human risk management platform – has announced a £3.25 million investment from BGF, one of the largest and most experienced investors in the UK and Ireland.

Boxphish’s suite of cyber security training courses, customisable phishing simulations and data analytics equips organisations, and their teams, with the tools and knowledge needed to mitigate the risk of falling victim to cyber-attacks.

The funding from BGF will allow management to accelerate investment in product, people and partners as Boxphish looks to enable even more organisations to stay ahead of what continues to be a rapidly evolving threat landscape.

Founded in 2020 by serial entrepreneurs, Henry Doyle and Dan Bailey, and CEO, Nick Deacon-Elliott, the business has quickly established itself as one of the rising stars in the UK human risk management sector, with a growing customer base and library of training courses that offer highly relevant content to meet the needs of organisations from across a broad range of sectors and sizes, working with the likes of North Yorkshire Council, University of Cambridge and Leeds United FC.

The deal was led by Rob Johnson, investor in BGF’s Yorkshire & North East team.

Commenting on the deal, Boxphish CEO Nick Deacon-Elliott, said:
“We’ve been scaling at real pace over the past few years. By combining relevant and interactive training with real-world phishing simulations and data-driven dashboards, we’re helping organisations identify, reduce and report on their human cyber risk, delivering real value to our clients.

“We’ve known BGF for a number of years and are now at a stage where partnering with an experienced, long-term minority investor with a strong track record of working with other regional tech companies is the right thing to do.”

As part of the investment, Andy Dancer has joined the Board as non-executive chair following an introduction from BGF’s Talent Network – one of the largest groups of board-level non-executives in the UK and Ireland. Andy brings a wealth of experience in founding, scaling and exiting other tech-focussed businesses and will support the team in refining and executing its growth strategy.

BGF investor Rob Johnson, who will join the Boxphish board, added: “
We’re delighted to be backing a highly-experienced and commercial team in Nick, Henry and Dan, who have established the foundations for continued growth over the coming years. We look forward to working closely with Boxphish and leveraging the wider BGF network to help the team accelerate their product and commercial strategy as we look to cement Boxphish’s reputation as one of the most exciting up and coming players in the human risk management space.”

BGF Advisors on the deal were: Paul Mann, Josh Lodge and Sarah Hardman (Squire Patton Boggs), Russ Cahill and Toyan Williams (Tax Advisory Partnership).


Management Advisors on the deal were: John Hamer, William Procter and Anna Musk (Walker Morris), Ben Taylor (KPMG).