SAN FRANCISCO — A previously unknown cybersecurity startup called UnBadge emerged from stealth on Wednesday with $40 million in Series A funding and a single product: an automated platform that unsubscribes conference attendees from every vendor email list their badge was scanned into without their knowledge or consent.

The company says its proprietary engine reverse-engineers badge scan databases and files unsubscribe requests across an average of 314 vendor mailing lists per attendee. Early beta users from RSA Conference 2025 reported inbox reductions of up to 91% in the two weeks following the event, though several noted that a handful of vendors re-added them within 48 hours using "a slightly different spelling of their first name."

UnBadge founder and CEO Diana Cowell, a former security engineer who says she was inspired after receiving 227 vendor emails in the six days following last year's RSA, described the product as "incident response for your inbox."

"You walk past a booth. You make eye contact with nobody. You are holding a coffee in one hand and your phone in the other. And somehow, by the time you reach the next aisle, four companies have your work email and one of them is already scheduling a demo."

The company's launch has drawn immediate backlash from conference organizers and exhibitors. The RSA Conference released a statement describing badge scanning as "a vital part of the cybersecurity ecosystem" and noting that "attendee engagement metrics are essential to the continued growth of thought leadership programming." When asked what that means, a spokesperson said, "It means we make a lot of money from it."