YC-backed Formal emerges from stealth with innovative security reverse-proxy solution

January 11, 2025February 6, 2025 EquityExplained

On Tuesday, Formalis emerged from stealth mode with a solid list of investors and an intriguing product positioning. The company has designed a reverse-proxy for data stores and APIs, allowing security teams to more easily secure access to sensitive data.

Table of Contents

What is Formal?

In simpler terms, Formal is a proxy that you deploy in your virtual private cloud (VPC) where it logs every request made to your data stores — say a database with customer information for instance — and enforces access policies. This means that security teams can more easily monitor and control who has access to sensitive data.

The Founder’s Story

Formalis is the brainchild of founder Mokhtar Bacha, a 24-year-old who began his tech career at Consensys while still a teen. Before getting the bug to turn solo entrepreneur, Bacha was lucky enough to connect with one of the co-founders of Ethereum — Joseph Lubin — and get recruited as a software engineer.

Bacha told TechCrunch that he found Consensys "technically, incredibly interesting" but didn’t feel like he was working on something very useful. This led him to apply to Y Combinator as a solo founder when he was still just 19 with his initial startup idea, Maytana, a cash management platform for multinational startups.

A Pivot and the Birth of Formal

After a pivot, Bacha’s initial startup idea became Formal, a security product that chief information security officers (CISOs) and CTOs may find useful. In late 2023, Formal raised a $5.8 million seed round with Thrive Capital leading the round and participation from Y Combinator. Abstract Ventures, Kima Ventures, and a bunch of business angels, including Alexis Lê-Quôc, Charles Gorintin, Mathilde Collin, Aaron Katz, Jean-Denis Greze, and Matt MacInnis, also joined the round.

Access and Control

While data access management isn’t new, what makes Formal special is that you can add or remove data stores and applications without having to manually configure each new component in your stack with a new security policy. Bacha explained that this is made possible by the company’s proprietary technology, which allows for seamless integration with existing systems.

The Benefits of Formal

So what does this mean for security teams? By using Formal, they can more easily:

Monitor and control who has access to sensitive data
Automate access policies and eliminate manual configuration
Reduce the risk of data breaches

Overall, Formalis is an exciting new player in the security space. With its innovative technology and strong list of investors, it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.

The Future of Security

As the threat landscape continues to evolve, security teams need more effective tools to protect their organizations. Formalis is well-positioned to address this need with its innovative reverse-proxy solution.

Conclusion

Formalis has emerged from stealth mode with a strong list of investors and an interesting product positioning. With its proprietary technology and automated access policies, it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on. As the threat landscape continues to evolve, security teams need more effective tools to protect their organizations, and Formalis is well-positioned to address this need.

Additional Reading

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