Palisade: So your emails aren't spam

Once the email is sent, does the email actually reach its destination? Montreal startup Palisade wants to make sure your company's messaging gets to the right place.

It is estimated that 97% of domains have insufficient infrastructure to maximize email deliverability.

So it got $1.5 million in funding, including $1 million from Boreal Ventures, to build an app that ensures your emails respect all computer protocols. Founded last year, the company believes that new requirements from Google, Apple, Yahoo and others to combat spam and phishing mean that many companies' email protocols are no longer relevant and more up to date. This means that the chances of an email going straight to spam are higher than before, even if it comes from a legitimate source.

“We felt there would be more needs and more complexity in terms of email infrastructure compliance,” said Samuel Chenard, president and CEO of Palisade. “Infrastructure is still being manually configured like it was in the 1990s. We are here to change that.”

Palisade has unveiled the first version of its email deliverability scoring tool that allows the company to perform an initial diagnosis of the structure of its emails. Within a year, it hopes to create a program focused on Domain Name System (DNS) configuration, deliverability monitoring, logo compliance and sender identity verification (known in English as Brand Message Identification Indicators (BIMI)).

The startup asserts that it is difficult for a company to properly align email protocols.

“It's about relieving founders and operators of this tedious task, allowing them to send emails with complete peace of mind,” says Samuel Chenard. We will automate the infrastructure setup and create an email deliverability score, similar to a credit score, based on various data points from ongoing testing. You will receive your scores every week to make sure everything is working properly. If you're affected, you'll receive an alert immediately, and we'll fix the issue or make recommendations for you.

Palisade specifically targets companies for which security is essential, such as banks or insurance companies, as well as those who use email as a marketing tool.

She says she already has several customers paying for her experimental product. It hopes to reach the $1 million mark in annual recurring revenue by the end of the year.