Newcastle based Crowd Threat raises £1m from Mercia Ventures and PXN Ventures
This article covers Crowd Threat, a Newcastle-based cybersecurity startup, which has raised £1m from Mercia Ventures and PXN Ventures in an investors funding round. The funding will be used to develop the product, expand global coverage and recruit staff, supporting governments, security providers and startups protecting overseas operations and supply chains.
Crowd Threat, a Newcastle cybersecurity startup, has raised £1 million from Mercia Ventures and PXN Ventures in an investors funding round. The cash, provided via the North East Accelerate Fund and NPIF II - PXN Equity Finance (part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II), will be used to develop the product further, expand global coverage and hire new staff.
Why it matters
The deal comes as organisations face a more unstable global security environment and seek faster, more localised threat intelligence. Traditional intelligence models rely on desk-based analysts sifting media and data feeds; Crowd Threat’s model aims to surface incidents closer to the source by paying locally based contributors. If it works at scale, this approach could shorten the time between an incident and actionable reporting for governments, security providers and companies protecting overseas operations and supply chains.
Inside the product
Crowd Threat aggregates incident reports from a network of more than 200 contributors across 17 countries and six continents. Contributors are typically security or intelligence professionals who are paid per report. Each submission is initially weighted by a contributor trust rating, then verified using a combination of AI and human review. The platform went live in June and was developed with Newcastle tech firm Wubbleyou.
The company says its roadmap includes expanding coverage in Africa, South America and Asia, recruiting up to 10,000 contributors over time, creating seven new jobs and building a second product aimed at identifying community tensions as an early warning for riots or outbreaks of violence.
Who are the investors?
The funding comes from Mercia Ventures and PXN Ventures. Mercia supplied money via the North East Accelerate Fund, which it manages, while PXN’s investment came through NPIF II - PXN Equity Finance, managed by PXN as part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II. These are regionally focused funds aimed at boosting growth-stage companies and startups in the north of England.
In the announcement, Owen Conquest, Investor at Mercia Ventures, said:
Demand for threat intelligence is growing. Crowd Threat’s innovative crowdsourced model offers an alternative approach to intelligence gathering, designed to improve the speed and quality of intelligence. This funding will enable Michael and the team to expand the platform’s geographical reach and accelerate customer acquisition.
In the announcement, Laurence Tan, Senior Investment Associate at PXN Ventures, said:
In today’s rapidly changing world, we’re seeing more businesses developing technology to help combat or raise awareness of growing geopolitical risks. Crowd Threat is doing exactly this, bringing new thinking to the threat intelligence conversation and aligning with the government’s Modern Industrial Strategy, which highlights defence as a key area. We’re proud to be backing Michael and the team with NPIF II funding to help scale this very timely innovation.
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Founder perspective
Michael McCabe, a former British Army intelligence operator who founded Crowd Threat in 2025, built the business on two decades of field experience and a previous exit: he also founded Intelligence Fusion, a software-enabled intelligence provider acquired by Sigma7 in 2022. The product reflects practices McCabe observed while deployed in Iraq, where local forums and networks rapidly circulated incident details.
In the announcement, Michael McCabe, Founder & CEO at Crowd Threat, said:
While working in Iraq, the security professionals would share information in an online forum. If an explosive device went off in the morning, by the end of the day we would know all the background. I came away thinking, why can’t we tap into local networks around the world?
In the announcement, Michael McCabe, Founder & CEO at Crowd Threat, said:
Technology now allows us to crowd source threats on a global scale. Using local people who understand the language and culture means we can report incidents more quickly and identify threats Western analysts may miss.
The bigger picture
Crowd Threat’s fundraising highlights a wider appetite among cybersecurity investors for products that combine human networks with automation to detect and verify incidents rapidly. The involvement of regionally focused funds underlines continued public and private interest in growing the North East’s startup ecosystem and ties into government priorities that emphasise defence and resilience.
As geopolitical uncertainty persists across Europe and beyond, demand for timely, locally sourced threat intelligence is likely to remain strong. Crowd Threat’s progress will be one to watch for observers tracking how startups blend crowdsourcing, AI and traditional intelligence expertise.
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