Penningtons Manches Cooper advises Oxford University’s 200th spin-out company

Penningtons Manches Cooper’s corporate team has advised cyber security specialist PhishAR, as it becomes the 200th company created through Oxford University Innovation (OUI), the commercialisation arm of Oxford University.

Building on the work of Professor Ivan Martinovic and Dr Ivo Sluganovic from Oxford’s Department of Computer Science, PhishAR employs augmented reality to crack down on “phishing”, an online scamming technique which fools a user into handing over their digital security credentials and other sensitive information. PhishAR will help users identify fraudulent emails, websites and other online transactions by using artificial intelligence to scan and analyse what is presented on the screen in order to detect discrepancies such as style and formatting, used URLs, information requested from the user, and other security indicators.

PhishAR’s seed funding round was led by Kluz Ventures. The company has since been accepted onto the Mastercard Start Path Programme to accelerate its development.

The Penningtons Manches Cooper team consisted of corporate partner James Went and corporate senior associate Attilio Leccisotti.

Attilio Leccisotti commented: “We are delighted that PhishAR has been a part of the University achieving the landmark figure of 200 spin-outs. The importance of the work they are doing to combat online fraud is typical of so many of the endeavours created by the University and we are proud to have had a role in helping a significant number of them.”