Safehire.ai has secured a £500k follow-on investment from a private investor, taking the company's total funding to £1.55m following its £1.05m seed round in April 2025.

Safehire.ai develops screening technology designed to help employers identify risks that may not be detected through traditional pre-employment checks such as DBS or equivalent screening, BPSS, credit checks and employment references.

The new funding will be used to expand its Digital Risk Screening platform beyond the education sector, and to develop its insider risk capabilities.

DRS combines AI with human analysis to review publicly-available information across the surface, deep and dark web. The platform can process more than 10,000 searches a day, compared with around 15 completed by a single human analyst.

The company was founded by former school bursar and cyber security specialist Simon Holden and Sean Lumley, co-founder of behavioural cyber security company CybSafe.

Safehire.ai CEO Simon Holden said: “Safehire challenges the idea that traditional checks are enough. By looking beyond the surface, we help organisations identify hidden risk, strengthen safeguarding and make high-trust decisions with greater confidence. This investment allows us to scale Digital Risk Screening beyond education, support larger enterprise use cases, develop our insider risk capability and prepare for expansion into other jurisdictions.”

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