Is Bolster profitable in 2026?

No public profitability data exists. A third party estimate pegs Bolster at roughly $9.2M ARR as of November 2025, with an implied valuation near $27.7M, well below its reported $39M to $46M total funding, suggesting thin or negative margins rather than confirmed profitability.

Could AI replace Bolster?

Bolster's detection layer, built on LLM transformers, is commoditizing as foundation models improve, but its claimed 1,500+ direct API integrations with registries, hosts, and app stores for takedown execution are harder to replicate with a model alone, as of May 2026 company materials.

Who is Bolster's biggest competitor?

ZeroFox is the clearest rival, ranking #2 in Digital Risk Protection with about 17.2% mind share versus Bolster's #18 rank and roughly 1.2% mind share, per a ZeroFox comparison blog published October 6, 2025.

Bolster is a privately held, venture backed company founded in 2017 by Abhishek Dubey and Shashi Prakash under the earlier name RedMarlin. Investors include Thomvest Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Cervin Ventures, and Microsoft's M12 fund, which led the May 2024 Series B.

Has Bolster raised a Series C?

No. As of March 29, 2026, Caplight reported Bolster's last funding round remained its $14M Series B from May 22, 2024, led by M12, meaning the company had gone 25 to 26 months without a new disclosed round.

What is Bolster's relationship with Akamai?

Akamai licensed Bolster's detection technology to power its own Brand Guardian brand protection product, announced March 25, 2026, and showcased at RSA Conference 2026. Bolster describes the partnership as an evolving effort with meaningful engineering work still ahead.

Cybersecurity companies · United States

Bolster

bolster.ai ↗

AI platform that detects and takes down phishing and brand impersonation sites.

Losing its protection

Assessed 21 July 2026 · Evidence as of 21 July 2026

The structural protection is eroding.

On the recordSince 21 July 2026 · Checkable from by end of 2026 · Every call on the record Checkpoint: Series C funding decision or continued silence past 26 months unfunded

The call

Bolster has real customers and a working takedown network, but it is small, unfunded for over two years, and sitting inside a partner's shadow that could swallow it.

Bolster is a company that helps big businesses take down fake copies of their websites and phishing scams online. It has real customers and has built up 1,500+ connections to the systems that actually remove these threats, which makes it hard for a new startup to copy. However, it is much smaller than rivals like Akamai, Proofpoint, and Microsoft, and it has not grown since 2024 or raised money in nearly two years. The thing that could change everything is whether Akamai, the big tech company Bolster already works with, decides to buy it, keep it as a partner, or build the same thing themselves instead.

Why

AI pressure: Foundation-model-based detection tools. Cheap AI detection copies the easy part of Bolster's work, but taking down fake sites still needs its 1,500+ takedown relationships. Could AI do the core job? Only partly.

Bigger players: Akamai, Proofpoint, Microsoft, Cloudflare. Akamai licenses Bolster's tech today but could build in-house, drop the deal, or just buy the company outright. Could a giant copy it? Yes, easily.

What protects it. 1,500+ direct API relationships with registrars and hosts that actually get fake sites taken down, not just flagged.

What would change this call

Bolster announces a Series C by end of 2026. Would show investors still see growth after 26+ months without new funding.
Akamai Brand Guardian partnership deepens, stalls, or converts to acquisition. Reveals whether Bolster's key distribution channel is strengthening or at risk of disappearing.
Public confirmation of CEO change from Dubey to Rod Schultz. Would clarify leadership stability and direction heading into next funding round.

Key numbers

~$9.2M estimated ARR (Nov 2025)
26+ months since last funding round (Mar 2026)
#18 in Digital Risk Protection, ~1.2% mind-share (2026)

Named risks

No new funding round since May 2024 Series B, now over 25 months without capital raise. Severity: high
Detection layer commoditizing as foundation models improve, eroding technical differentiation. Severity: high
Flat headcount at 91 employees since October 2024 signals stalled growth. Severity: medium
Subscale market position at #18 in DRP category with only 1.2 percent mind share vs consolidating larger rivals. Severity: high
Dependency on Akamai partnership that could stall, unwind, or convert to acquisition rather than deepen. Severity: medium

Rivals, as read in July 2026

Rival	Direction	Evidence
ZeroFox	losing to	ZeroFox holds #2 rank at 17.2 percent DRP mind share vs Bolster's #18 at 1.2 percent, Oct 2025
Akamai	contesting	Akamai licensed Bolster tech for Brand Guardian in March 2026, but could later build in house or acquire
Proofpoint	gaining on	Named as a larger adjacent incumbent with no structural barrier stopping in house build, per 2026 analysis
Netcraft	contesting	Listed as a direct DRP peer competitor in Bolster's own 2026 competitor content
BrandShield	contesting	Named rival in brand protection space, referenced in Bolster's ZeroFox alternatives blog, June 2026

Questions people ask

Is Bolster profitable in 2026?: No public profitability data exists. A third party estimate pegs Bolster at roughly $9.2M ARR as of November 2025, with an implied valuation near $27.7M, well below its reported $39M to $46M total funding, suggesting thin or negative margins rather than confirmed profitability.
Could AI replace Bolster?: Bolster's detection layer, built on LLM transformers, is commoditizing as foundation models improve, but its claimed 1,500+ direct API integrations with registries, hosts, and app stores for takedown execution are harder to replicate with a model alone, as of May 2026 company materials.
Who is Bolster's biggest competitor?: ZeroFox is the clearest rival, ranking #2 in Digital Risk Protection with about 17.2% mind share versus Bolster's #18 rank and roughly 1.2% mind share, per a ZeroFox comparison blog published October 6, 2025.
Who owns Bolster?: Bolster is a privately held, venture backed company founded in 2017 by Abhishek Dubey and Shashi Prakash under the earlier name RedMarlin. Investors include Thomvest Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Cervin Ventures, and Microsoft's M12 fund, which led the May 2024 Series B.
Has Bolster raised a Series C?: No. As of March 29, 2026, Caplight reported Bolster's last funding round remained its $14M Series B from May 22, 2024, led by M12, meaning the company had gone 25 to 26 months without a new disclosed round.
What is Bolster's relationship with Akamai?: Akamai licensed Bolster's detection technology to power its own Brand Guardian brand protection product, announced March 25, 2026, and showcased at RSA Conference 2026. Bolster describes the partnership as an evolving effort with meaningful engineering work still ahead.

Timeline

2026-05-04Bolster launches Marketplace Monitoring and Takedowns, claims 20X fraud cost cut
2026-04-01Bolster publishes research tracking 152 new IRS impersonation domains in Q1 2026
2026-03-25Akamai licenses Bolster detection tech to power new Brand Guardian product
2026-01-27Bolster reports tracking 11.9 million malicious domains in 2025
2025-11-09Latka estimates Bolster ARR at $9.2M, implied valuation $27.7M
2025-10-06ZeroFox blog ranks Bolster #18 in Digital Risk Protection at 1.2% mind share
2025-10Bolster launches Signals, a real time external threat intelligence dashboard
2024-05-22Bolster closes $14M Series B led by Microsoft's M12 fund
2022-10-18Bolster closes $15M round led by Cervin Ventures
2019-08Bolster raises $10M Series A led by Thomvest Ventures

Revision history

21 July 2026

First assessed. Losing its protection. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.

In the same band

Seqrite Meiya Pico NSFOCUS