Interview with John Ackerly, Co-Founder & CEO of Virtru

As CEO and Co-Founder of Virtru, John is a long time privacy advocate. Prior to co-founding Virtru, John was an investor at Lindsay Goldberg LLC, working with entrepreneurs to dramatically scale their businesses. John also served as a technology policy advisor at the White House and was the Policy and Strategic Planning Director at the U.S. Department of Commerce.

John graduated from Williams College, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Virtru empowers organizations to easily unlock the power of data while maintaining control, everywhere it’s stored and shared. Virtru is trusted by more than 7,000 global customers to power their Zero Trust strategies and safeguard their most sensitive data in accordance with the world’s strictest security standards. Creators of TDF (Trusted Data Format), the open industry standard for persistent data protection, Virtru provides encryption technology for data shared through email, collaboration tools, cloud environments, and enterprise SaaS applications. For more information, visit https://www.virtru.com or follow us on Twitter at @virtruprivacy.

Virtru Product Overview

Interview questions:

Introduction | Please provide an introduction to Virtru? Products, clients, employees…

2012 | You founded Virtru with your brother Will Ackerly in 2012. Tell us about the founding of Virtu? As policy advisor at the White House during 9/11, did you garner insights that led to the formation of Virtru? What role did Wil play? Ie. NSA, the Trusted Data Format.

Products | Can you provide an overview of the data protection products of Virtru?

Google | Virtru can be used as an encryption provider for Google Workspace. Tell us about the partnership with Google.

Clients | Who are some of your clients? The state of Maryland, Brown University…

Milestones | Since the company’s launch in 2012, what are some of the major milestones?

Capital | Virtru has raised more than $76 million. Can you provide a history of the financing of Virtru? 2016 – $29 Million Series A: New Enterprise Associates, Soros Fund Management, Haystack Partners, Quadrant Capital Advisors, and Blue Delta Capital. 2018 – $37 Million Series B – led by Iconiq Capital and returning investors Bessemer Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Samsung, Blue Delta Capital, and Soros Fund Management.

Growth | What are the growth opportunities for Virtru?

Public Trust | Last year, you wrote a blog entitled “Restoring Public Trust When We Need It Most”. Can you explain your vision for digital vaccine credentials? Has it garnered any traction?

Connect with John on LinkedIn

Omada Relies on Virtru to Secure and Share Protected Health Information