Emerging Security Vendors To Know In 2020
As part of CRN’s Emerging Vendors for 2020, here are 55 hot security startups, founded in 2014 or later, that solution providers should be aware of.
The New Generation Of Cybersecurity Companies
Security technology vendors must always be at least one step ahead of the bad guys. It’s not surprising, therefore, that IT security is perhaps the IT industry segment with the most rapid pace of innovation as security vendors race to develop products and services to counter the ever-changing range of threats – from phishing and ransomware, to insider threats, to sophisticated drive-by download and distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Major vendors, including Cisco Systems, Fortinet, McAfee, Palo Alto Networks and Sophos, account for a big portion of security tech industry sales. But the wide landscape of potential threat vectors leaves plenty of room for technological innovation – and a seemingly never-ending wave of security tech startups are a major source of that innovation.
As part of CRN’s Emerging Vendors for 2020, here are 55 hot security startups, founded in 2014 or later, that solution providers should be aware of.
Aqua Security
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Dror Davidoff, Co-Founder, CEO
Aqua‘s Cloud Native Security Platform enables enterprises to secure their container-based, serverless and cloud-native applications. In 2019 Aqua expanded into cloud security posture management by acquiring CloudSploit to provide full visibility across applications and cloud resources required to harden security postures.
Arcules
Founded: 2017
Top Executive: Andreas Pettersson, CEO
Arcules addresses the unmet need for an integrated, cloud-based video surveillance, access control and IoT service. Using the latest developments in cloud and AI, Arcules combines previously untapped video with sensor data and analytics to deliver actionable insight that optimizess operations and improve safety.
Armis
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Yevgeny Dibrov, Co-Founder, CEO
The Armis agentless device security platform is built to protect unmanaged IoT devices, providing passive, real-time and continuous asset inventory, risk management, and detection response to prevent cyberattacks from disrupting and compromising a business.
Avalanche Global Solutions
Founded: 2016
Top Executive: Manan Shah, Founder, CEO
Avalanche provides complete cybersecurity offerings, delivering customized systems, customer remediation and preventative maintenance services to large enterprises and governments. The company helps customers before, during and after a security breach.
Awake Security
Founded: 2014
Top Executive: Rahul Kashyap, CEO
Awake Security delivers advanced network traffic analysis capabilities that provide answers, not alerts. By combining AI with human expertise, Awake autonomously hunts for both insider and external attackers, while providing triage, digital forensics and incident response across traditional, IoT and cloud networks.
Axis Security
Founded: 2018
Top Executive: Dor Knafo, Co-Founder, CEO
Axis‘ Application Access Cloud is a purpose-built, cloud-based offering that makes private app access simple. Built on a zero-trust approach, the agentless-model offering delivers the easiest, safest way to connect users anywhere on any device, to private apps, without touching the network or applications.
Axonius
Founded: 2017
Top Executive: Dean Sysman, Co-Founder, CEO
The Axonius cybersecurity asset management platform provides organizations with a comprehensive asset inventory, uncovers security solution coverage gaps, and automatically validates/enforces security policies. By seamlessly integrating with over 200 security management offerings, Axonius can be deployed in minutes to improve cyber hygiene.
Balbix
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Gaurav Banga, Founder, CEO
Balbix leverages specialized AI to provide organizations with a comprehensive and real-time view into their breach risk and prescribes prioritized mitigating actions to enable them to transform their cybersecurity posture, reduce cyber-risk by 95 percent or more, and make security teams 10 times more efficient.
BigID
Founded: 2016
Top Executive: Dimitri Sirota, Co-Founder, CEO
BigID redefines data privacy and protection, helping organizations understand their data for privacy, protection and perspective. BigID uses advanced machine learning and data intelligence to help manage customer and sensitive data, meet data privacy and protection regulations, and leverage coverage across all data stores.
BluBracket
Founded: 2019
Top Executive: Prakash Linga, Co-Founder, CEO
BluBracket’s security technology secures one of businesses’ most valuable assets: their software code. Launched by the CEO and CTO at Vera, which provides security for documents, BluBracket exited stealth earlier this year with $6.5 million in seed funding.
Cambridge Blockchain
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Aloek Bhargava, CEO
Cambridge Blockchain develops blockchain-based identity management, privacy compliance and customer on-boarding software. The company’s IDBridge and Confidare products return control of personal data back to users while delivering the benefits of trusted, distributed identity to consumers and organizations.
Cato Networks
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Shlomo Kramer, Co-Founder, CEO
Cato Networks’ SASE platform converges SD-WAN and network security into a global cloud service. Cato optimizes and secures application access for all users and locations, replacing legacy security products and network services with an agile and secure global network.
Claroty
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Yaniv Vardi, CEO
Claroty is focused on protecting industrial networks from cyberattacks, ensuring safe and reliable operation of the world‘s most critical infrastructure. The Claroty platform provides a complete operational technology security ofering that integrates seamlessly with existing IT security infrastructure.
Clear Skye
Founded: 2016
Top Executive: John Milburn, CEO
Clear Skye IGA is a full-featured identity governance and administration offering built on the ServiceNow Platform. Customers leverage their investment in ServiceNow in order to be able to automate and review user access to enterprise applications.
Cloudknox Security
Founded: 2018
Top Executive: Balaji Parimi, CEO
CloudKnox Security transforms the way enterprises protect critical cloud resources. It ensures that every human and non-human identity that touches cloud infrastructure always has the least amount of permissions to do their jobs through a patented activity-based Authorization Protocol and Just Enough Privileges Controller.
Concentric
Founded: 2018
Top Executive: Karthik Krishnan, Founder, CEO
Concentric helps enterprises discover and protect their business-critical content. The Concentric semantic intelligence offering uses deep learning to provide a comprehensive inventory and risk profile of sensitive data, helping businesses discover, monitor and remediate risks to sensitive data on-premises and in the cloud.
Contrast Security
Founded: 2014
Top Executive: Alan Naumann, CEO
Contrast Security is a leader in next-generation application security. The company’s DevOps-native AppSec platform uses instrumentation to analyze and protect from within an application, embedding code analysis and attack prevention directly into software.
CyberGRX
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Fred Kneip, CEO
CyberGRX‘s platform empowers organizations to manage and reduce third-party cyber risk. The company’s global cyber risk exchange approach includes structured and validated cyber risk data and analytics that educate organizations on third parties that pose the highest risk and identify priority areas.
Cybersafe Solutions
Founded: 2014
Top Executive: Ben Filingeri, CEO
Cybersafe Solutions is a global managed security service provider offering clients SOC-as-a-Service and managed detection, response and containment offerings. Cybersafe works with clients to establish a security baseline and design, build and implement programs that follow best practices, and bring visibility into client environments.
Cylus
Founded: 2017
Top Executive: Amir Levintal, CEO
Cylus is a leader in rail cybersecurity technology, addressing the unique security needs of the railway industry by helping mainline and metro rail companies and organizations avoid safety incidents and service disruptions caused by cyberattacks.
Cymatic
Founded: 2016
Top Executive: Jason Hollander, Co-Founder, CEO
Cymantic secures online applications by focusing on unmanaged users and devices. Its cloud- and AI-based user and entity behavior analytics platform identifies and verifies a user’s “security hygiene” and blocks threats before they get past the browser.
Cymulate
Founded: 2016
Top Executive: Eyal Wachsman, Co-Founder, CEO
Cymulate develops an automated, SaaS-based breach and attack simulation platform that businesses and organizations use to validate and manage their cybersecurity posture and identify security gaps. Founded by former Israeli Defense Force intelligence officers, Cymulate raised $15 million in Series B funding in November.
Defendify
Founded: 2017
Top Executive: Rob Simopoulos, Co-Founder
Defendify is an all-in-one cybersecurity platform for businesses with fewer than 500 employees. Defendify combines cybersecurity plans, policies, procedures, testing, training and scanning technologies through a single pane of glass. The Defendify product is designed for channel partner sales as a subscription-based offering.
Edgewise Networks
Founded: 2016
Top Executive: Peter Smith, Founder, CEO
Edgewise Networks develops network security technology that proactively prevents application compromise and attack progression by network-borne threats, providing trusted application networking for the cloud and data center. Edgewise Networks was acquired by Zscaler in late May.
Fortanix
Founded: 2016
Top Executive: Ambuj Kumar, Co-Founder, CEO
Fortanix provides an enterprise data security platform with the company’s Runtime Encryption technology that’s built upon Intel SGX. The system encrypts applications and data in the cloud and on-premises, securing data that’s at rest, in motion and in use.
FortressIQ
Founded: 2017
Top Executive: Pankaj Chowdhry, Founder, CEO
FortressIQ markets an online security, governance and compliance platform for enterprise business automation and AI processes. The FortressIQ system uses computer vision, AI and analytics to deliver real-time process insight. The company raised $30 million in Series B financing in May.
GreatHorn
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Kevin O’Brien, Co-Founder, CEO
GreatHorn’s cloud-native email security platform provides comprehensive email threat and account takeover protection that’s designed to halt social engineering and phishing attacks on cloud email systems like Office 365 and G Suite.
Huntress Labs
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Kyle Hanslovan, Founder, CEO
Huntress provides advanced threat detection and actionable cybersecurity intelligence for MSPs and VARs. Huntress created an effective method to investigate and protect against footholds that indicate malicious activity on customer endpoints, providing expert analysis and actionable insight that enables teams to quickly resolve incidents.
Illusive Networks
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Ofer Israeli, Founder, CEO
Illusive Networks uses next-generation deception technology to stop cyberattacks by detecting attackers, destroying their decision-making processes, and depriving them of the means to move laterally. Illusive‘s deception and attack surface reduction capabilities eliminate high-risk pathways to critical systems and capture forensics that accelerate incident response.
Infocyte
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Curtis Hutcheson, CEO
Infocyte provides continuous monitoring and digital forensic analysis of SaaS platforms, enabling quick identification and investigation of—and response to—sophisticated cyberattacks. Infocyte goes to market through MSSPs, incident response firms and VARs, enabling them to provide IR and managed detection and response services.
InterGrid
Founded: 2016
Top Executive: David McGillivray, Managing Principal
JetStream from InterGrid is a complete private-labeled managed services program that enables solution providers to offer a full scope of managed services under their brand without the large capital outlay or risk typically associated with building a practice from scratch.
IronNet
Founded: 2014
Top Executive: Keith Alexander, Co-CEO, Founder
IronNet‘s IronDome collective defense offering is a proactive, collaborative platform that empowers organizations to collectively defend against cyberthreats. By sharing correlated threat behaviors across ecosystems, organizations mutually aid in detection, remediation and mitigation of cyberthreats to enterprises, business ecosystems, industry sectors, states and nations.
K2 Cyber Security
Founded: 2017
Top Executive: Pravin Madhani, Co-Founder, CEO
K2 Cyber Security delivers a next-generation application workload protection platform to secure critical web applications and container workloads against sophisticated attacks, including OWASP Top 10 and memory-based attacks. K2 uses patented technology to identify zero-day attacks in real time with no false positives, dramatically reducing security costs.
Liongard
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Joseph Alapat, CEO
Liongard targets the MSP arena with its flagship Roar automated documentation software that provides unified visibility through automated data aggregation. With automated documentation, actionable alerts and rich reporting capabilities, Liongard helps MSP teams operate more efficiently, optimize their resources and more effectively serve customers.
ManagedMethods
Founded: 2014
Top Executive: Charlie Sander, CEO
ManagedMethods is a leading Google G Suite and Microsoft 365 cybersecurity, student safety and compliance platform for K-12 education. ManagedMethods uses AI-powered threat protection technology to help school districts secure sensitive student and staff data and monitor student safety signals (such as cyberbullying) in text and images.
NeuShield
Founded: 2017
Top Executive: Yuen Pin Yeap, CEO
NeuShield protects data from ransomware and other cyberthreats by preventing malware from changing or corrupting data. Malware can only attack a mirror image of data: Neushield’s technology, called “mirror shielding,” allows instant recovery of data from any fully undetectable or zero-day threat without requiring updates.
NuID
Founded: 2017
Top Executive: Locke Brown, CEO
NuID is a pioneer in “trustless authentication” and decentralized digital identity. The company’s user authentication system uses blockchain technology and “zero knowledge cryptography” to authenticate individuals, eliminating the need to store passwords in a central database— passwords that can be stolen.
Obsidian Security
Founded: 2017
Top Executive: Glenn Chisholm, CEO
Obsidian Security’s cloud detection and response platform provides unified visibility of users, privileges and activity in SaaS applications, making it possible to detect and investigate breaches, uncover insider threats and secure SaaS systems without impacting productivity.
One Identity
Founded: 2016
Top Executive: Patrick Nichols, CEO
One Identity’s governance and privileged access management offerings help organizations achieve security by placing identities at the core. Through its unique approach, over 7,500 organizations worldwide leverage One Identity to manage over 125 million identities.
Opaq
Founded: 2016
Top Executive: Glenn Hazard, CEO
The Opaq cloud-delivered Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) platform combines advanced security with a fully encrypted Gigabit speed global network backbone. The technology provides edge-based security enforcement for traditional data center, remote work, and hybrid and multi-cloud architectures.
Orca Security
Founded: 2019
Top Executive: Avi Shua, Co-Founder, CEO
Orca Security provides instant-on, workload-level visibility into 100 percent of AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform assets without the operational costs of agents. Orca‘s deep cloud inspection, powered by SideScanning, identifies vulnerabilities, malware, misconfigurations, secret keys, weak and leaked passwords, lateral movement risk and high-risk personally identifiable information.
Perimeter 81
Founded: 2018
Top Executive: Amit Bareket, Co-Founder, CEO
Perimeter 81 provides secure access to local network, applications and cloud infrastructures with one unified platform. By transforming outdated, complex and hardware-based offerings into a cloud-based SaaS solution, the company simplifies network security for the modern and distributed workforce.
RangeForce
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Gordon Lawson, President, CRO
RangeForce delivers an integrated cybersecurity simulation and skills analysis platform combining a virtual cyber range with hands-on advanced cybersecurity training. Cyber and IT professionals use RangeForce to qualify new hires; train DevOps, IT and security staff; and run CyberSiege simulations to evaluate team skills.
Refactr
Founded: 2017
Top Executive: Michael Fraser, CEO
Refactr has created a modern and radically simple DevSecOps automation platform. The vendor is accelerating the adoption of DevSecOps methodologies among DevOps and security teams by providing a simple and collaborative automation offering built for the next era of IT.
ReFirm Labs
Founded: 2017
Top Executive: Derick Naef, CEO
ReFirm Labs provides IoT and firmware security offerings that proactively validate and monitor IoT devices to defend connected devices and supply chain integrity. Founded by former NSA offensive cyber operators, ReFirm is trusted by enterprises operating in government, telecommunications, IT, automotive, health care, utilities and manufacturing.
Remediant
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Tim Keeler, Co-Founder, CEO
Remediant delivers enterprise-class cybersecurity privileged access management offerings that enable real-time monitoring, zero trust protection of privileged accounts and just-in-time administration across IT/security/cloud ecosystems. Remediant protects organizations from stolen credentials being used against them—the No. 1 attack vector across all breaches.
Respond Software
Founded: 2016
Top Executive: Mike Armistead, Co-Founder, CEO
Security sensors generate many false positives, making actionable incidents nearly impossible to identify. Respond Software created Robotic Decision Automation, which combines the best of human judgement with the scale, consistency and depth of analysis into software. The Respond Analyst defends the enterprise posture for security operations.
Seceon
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Chandra Shekhar Pandey, Co-Founder, CEO
Seceon goes beyond traditional approaches of employing silos to build an organization’s security posture. With a vision of delivering “comprehensive cybersecurity for the digital era” and solving cybersecurity challenges faced by digitization, Seceon‘s fully automated platform empowers enterprises and MSSPs to detect and respond to cyberthreats in real time.
Skout Cybersecurity
Founded: 2014
Top Executive: Aidan Kehoe, CEO
Skout is a channel-only provider of fully managed security operation center services for MSPs, focusing on security monitoring, and endpoint and email protection. The company recently introduced a security package to protect work-from-home employees that includes protection against email compromise and ransomware.
Snyk
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Peter McKay, CEO
Snyk is a developer-first security company that helps organizations use open-source technology and stay secure. Snyk seamlessly and proactively finds and fixes vulnerabilities and license violations in open-source dependencies and container images.
StackRox
Founded: 2014
Top Executive: Kamal Shah, CEO
StackRox helps enterprises secure their containers and Kubernetes environments at scale. The company’s Kubernetes-native container security platform enables security and DevOps teams to enforce security and compliance policies across the entire container life cycle, from build to deploy to runtime.
Third Wall
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Scott Springer, CEO
Third Wall develops a cybersecurity plug-in for ConnectWise Automate, enhancing a solution provider‘s ability to easily lock down a customer’s environment—automating and monitoring many difficult tasks in an easy-to-use interface within the Automate Control Center.
TrueFort
Founded: 2015
Top Executive: Sameer Malhotra, CEO
TrueFort helps IT organizations connect business security policy with operational reality. Fortress XDR reduces cybersecurity risks and cloud migration costs by taking an application-first, behavioral analytics and optional bring-your-own-agent approach. Enterprise IT organizations can improve application risk posture, protection and compliance while leveraging existing security investments.
Xage Security
Founded: 2016
Top Executive: Duncan Greatwood, CEO
Xage delivers comprehensive cybersecurity for real-world operations, protecting access to every device and securing shared data. To support the distributed nature of modern industrial operations, Xage‘s blockchain-protected system provides authenticity, integrity,and privacy across multiple parties, enabling efficient operations for oil and gas, renewables, utilities and logistics.
XM Cyber
Founded: 2016
Top Executive: Noam Erez, CEO
XM Cyber’s breach and attack simulation platform simulates, validates and remediates attackers‘ paths to an organization’s critical assets 24/7. XM Cyber brings innovation to the security industry with patented products that address the unique gaps that arise in large, complex networks.