SiftMed, the St. John’s maker of software that helps law offices and insurance companies organize and search jumbled medical records, has won a key cybersecurity certification for its technology.

The company’s software is now officially recognized as SOC 2 compliant, an endorsement from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants related to ensuring that a business’s third-party service providers follow security best practices. The certification is especially sought-after by SaaS companies, like SiftMed.

“SOC 2 Type 1 compliance is vital for any company handling medical and legal data, as it verifies that our system meets rigorous security standards,” said SiftMed in a social media statement. “This milestone further proves our commitment to the security and protection of our customers’ sensitive data.”

When co-founders Holly Hill and Dr. Jeremie Larouche, an orthopaedic surgeon, initially conceived of SiftMed, they saw it as a way to streamline Larouche’s own medical consulting business.

The duo’s technology uses natural language processing for various purposes. The system automatically organizes and categorizes files, provides optical character recognition to make scanned documents searchable and offers more sophisticated artificial intelligence to extract key medical data from the files. The system has applications in the insurance industry and for law offices like Roebothan McKay Marshall.

Now, their team includes at least 22 people, according to LinkedIn data, up from about 15 this time last year. That growth follows a $2.7 million seed round last year that was led by the Atlantic Canadian female-focused VC fund Sandpiper Ventures.