CommandK, a startup offering a dedicated platform to manage enterprise security, has raised $3 million in a seed round led by Lightspeed.

Companies accumulate a lot of sensitive data and store secrets, such as API tokens, SSH keys and personally identifiable information. But protecting that is a complex task and requires state-of-the-art security prowess. This sadly can incur a significant cost burden that even many mid to late-stage companies avoid taking — until they face a severe security incident hitting their businesses. CommandK, just out of stealth mode, believes it can address this problem with its one-stop platform.

The San Francisco-based startup lets companies deploy its solution within their virtual private cloud to protect their sensitive data and keys without requiring advanced security skills. The startup's solution comes as a mix of software development kits and APIs with which existing developers in a team can easily interact to enhance their security. The platform's dashboard acts as a central control panel to inform about what is broken in the system to ensure data protection.

Jayesh Sidhwani and Rohan Prabhu, who previously worked together at neobank Jupiter, founded CommandK in June last year. Sidhwani, who serves as CommandK's chief executive, said he saw firsthand how companies — in the absence of strict security measures — struggle to comply with data protection laws, such as Europe's General Data Protection Regulation, or California's Consumer Privacy Act in the United States.

Companies sometimes rely on third-party microservices and software-as-a-service tools that sprawl their sensitive data across multiple platforms, exposing them to a wider attack area.

CommandK says it addresses that limitation by securing the data within the company's infrastructure.

"Since we're dealing with sensitive data, we wanted to ensure that while you get the best of the experience, the data doesn't leave your network," Sidhwani told TechCrunch.