Startup Defense

The company offers managed detection and response (MDR) solutions for small and medium-sized businesses

Startup Defense offers managed detection and response (MDR) services, providing cybersecurity teams at small and medium-sized businesses with support for 24/7 threat monitoring, detection, and response. The company also offers a platform that leverages machine learning and artificial intelligence to detect known and unknown malware and ransomware. Pricing for the company’s offering ranges from USD 3 to USD 11 per month, depending on the number of services provided.

AI-based solutions for evolving digital threats

Next-gen Cybersecurity

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 Cato Networks provides cloud security products such as Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs), Secure Web Gateways (SWGs), and cloud-based firewalls to enterprises through its SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) architecture, claiming to be the first in the world to provide the service. Cato Network&rsquo;s SASE offering is provided through a network distributed across over 65 locations globally as of October 2021.
 
 
 
 
 Cato Networks was founded by Shlomo Kramer, who also co-founded the incumbent cybersecurity company Check Point Software. In 2020, the company reported over 240% year-over-year (YoY) growth in the number of bookings, making FY2020 its fourth consecutive year to exceed 200% growth. During the year, the company signed multiple Fortune 500 companies, and as of October 2021, it served more than 900 enterprises across 9,000 locations, translating to 200,000 remote workers using Cato&rsquo;s SASE offering daily. As of November 2020, the company employed 270 staff with plans to reach 400 by the end of 2021.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Cato Networks&rsquo; last funding round was in November 2020, raising USD 130 million in Series E funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners at a valuation in excess of USD 1 billion. The company expects to use the funding for product development with plans to invest in engineering, growing its team, and expanding marketing efforts.
 
 
 
</div>

Cato Networks

<div>
 
 Netskope provides cloud security solutions for enterprises that include cloud-delivered secure web gateways (SWGs), cloud access security brokers (CASB), and other solutions to manage access to cloud workloads. These solutions help companies monitor the use of cloud applications and identify suspicious behavior. Netskope&rsquo;s tools attempt to replace legacy solutions such as VPNs. The company introduced a unified solution in 2019 called &ldquo;NewEdge,&rdquo; combining its security technology offerings and providing them under secure access service edge (SASE) architecture. The rollout followed the acquisition of New Edge Labs in 2019 for an undisclosed amount, in line with its strategy of acquiring smaller startups to fuel expansion. Netskope also acquired Sift Security in 2018, which provides a machine learning-based tool to detect and respond to threats to cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) applications such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. Netskope joined the cohort of Solista&rsquo;s Zero Trust Alliance in July 2021, to assist Australian organizations in developing a toolset and framework in assessing their zero trust readiness while detecting and remediating internal and external threats.
 
 
 NewEdge is delivered using data centers in 40 regions worldwide including North America, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, and Asia Pacific, enabling a low-latency cloud security offering. As of March 2021, the company had invested in excess of USD 100 million to build the NewEdge infrastructure. The company claimed that its tools protected more than 10% of Microsoft Office 365&rsquo;s commercial users as of the same date.
 
 
 Netskope&rsquo;s product offerings were backed by more than 100 global patents as of January 2023, and the company served more than 2,400 customers globally including more than 25 of the Fortune 100 companies. Furthermore the company has a total employee headcount of more than 2,500 in more than 40 countries.
 
 
 In April 2023 Netskope announced 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17658">
 the addition of a new software-defined wide area network
 </a>
 (SD-WAN) service to its platform, designed to provide enterprises with the ability to ensure secure access to their infrastructure from endpoint devices in any location. Netskope planned to offer the new SD-WAN alongside its existing SSE product to provide a unified SASE client, which it claimed was an industry first.
 
 
 In June 2023, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19604">
 Netskope updated its secure service edge (SSE) platform
 </a>
 to help address data leakage risks of generative AI applications like ChatGPT. The updated platform allows organizations to track usage of generative AI applications, manage access controls, and automatically prevents leakage of sensitive information.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In July 2021, Netskope partnered with cybersecurity company, Chillisoft, to accelerate sales for cloud-based SASE protection to 1,250 resellers and integrators, including more than 100 managed service providers (MSPs) across New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
 
 
 Netskope 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10845">
 acquired the IoT security startup
 </a>
 WootCloud in June 2022 integrating WootCloud&rsquo;s HyperContext Security platform with its Intelligent Security Service Edge (SSE) platform to expand its SSE and Zero Trust capabilities. This was followed by the 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12036">
 acquisition of cloud networking vendor
 </a>
 Infiot in August 2022 to deliver an integrated single-vendor SASE platform to its customers by leveraging Infiot&rsquo;s technologies to offer a uniform security and quality of experience (QoE) policies to the Netskope Borderless WAN.
 
 
 Netskope 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15413">
 partnered 
 </a>
 with Stellar Cyber, a open extended detection and response (Open XDR) startup in December 2022, to provide a joint solution that incorporates rich user-centric data to improve control and visibility of risks and threats across incident investigations conducted by Security Operation Center (SOC) analysts.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In January 2023, the company 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15521">
 raised USD 401 million in convertible notes
 </a>
 led by Morgan Stanley Tactical Value. The funds were utilized to accelerate platform development and expand its go-to-market strategy.
 
</div>

Netskope

<div>
 
 SentinelOne offers a range of endpoint protection solutions for enterprises. The company provides the artificial intelligence (AI)-based platform &ldquo;Singularity,&rdquo; which is a unified offering for endpoint security, including a next-generation antivirus (NGAV), endpoint detection and response tools (EDR), extended detection and response (XDR), and other tools to monitor endpoint behavior from laptops, phones, and internet-of-things (IoT) devices to identify threats. Singularity ActiveEDR incorporates Storyline Active Response (STAR) to provide automated threat detection and response and also enables end-users to write custom MITRE-compatible detection rules. SentinelOne&rsquo;s endpoint protection offering also extends to cloud endpoints and workloads, offering AI and behavior-based protection for virtual machines (VMs) and containers in the cloud. Singularity also provides features to centrally control cybersecurity policies and automate tasks for response and remediation. In addition to endpoint security, SentinelOne offers managed detection and response services, which support organizations with technology and human resources for threat hunting, response, and incident investigation.
 
 
 In April 2023, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17965">
 SentinelOne launched a generative AI platform
 </a>
 for threat detection, allowing security teams to run threat detection and automated remediation operations using natural language instead of code based commands.
 
 
 In November 2023 the company 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/23867">
 launched
 </a>
 a new, unified version of its Singularity platform, Singularity Unity, with upgraded cloud and endpoint security and data lake capabilities, as well as a GenAI cybersecurity assistant. Unity incorporated SentinelOne&rsquo;s &ldquo;PurpleAI&rdquo; models to simplify investigations, governance, and compliance and improving metrics such as mean time to detect/resolve (MTTD/MTTR).
 
 
 SentinelOne acquired cloud data-logging startup Scalyr in February 2021 for USD 155 million to bolster its own XDR capabilities. SentinelOne also entered into an agreement to acquire the identity threat detection and response (ITDR) startup 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9176">
 Attivo Networks 
 </a>
 for USD 616.5 million in March 2022, and expects to integrate Attivo Networks&rsquo; capabilities into its Singularity XDR solution to provide autonomous protection. This includes ITDR, identity infrastructure assessment, and identity cyber deception capabilities to protect endpoint, cloud workloads, IoT devices, mobile, and data against identity compromise, lateral movement attacks, credential theft, data cloaking, and more. This acquisition will also add to SentinelOne&rsquo;s gross margin and expand its total addressable market (TAM) by USD 4 billion in the critical identity security category.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 SentinelOne partnered with cloud services and cybersecurity distributor Exclusive Networks in July 2021 to launch its platform for Australian and New Zealand MSP and MSSPs. During the same period, the company inked a partnership with ConnectWise to offer its standalone endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions to its global partner base of technology solution providers (TSPs).
 
 
 SentinelOne has partnered with managed detection and response (MDR) 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4878">
 providers 
 </a>
 such as 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/228245">
 Red Canary 
 </a>
 , deepwatch, and 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/505475">
 BlueVoyant 
 </a>
 to 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/sectors/work/updates/6173">
 integrate 
 </a>
 its solution with the latter&rsquo;s MDR offerings. In addition, SentinelOne has also partnered with 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/75116">
 Zscaler 
 </a>
 , a cloud network security 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/sectors/work/updates/5182">
 company 
 </a>
 , and Cloudflare, a web infrastructure and website security 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5182">
 company 
 </a>
 , to push its own offerings through Zscaler and SentinelOne&rsquo;s services. It also 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12082">
 partnered
 </a>
 with the observable data management company, Cribl in August 2022 to leverage the latter&rsquo;s observability product suite to streamline cybersecurity triage, optimize data collection, and provide security teams control of their data. During the same month, the company 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12235">
 partnered
 </a>
 with the IoT security startup, Armis to jointly provide three unified solutions that protect organizations across endpoints, cloud, mobile, IoT, OT devices, and more. In December 2021, Sentinel 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7149">
 partnered 
 </a>
 with Attivo Networks, to integrate its Singularity XDR with Attivo Networks&rsquo; Endpoint Detection Net (EDN) suite for a combined solution that prevents attackers from compromising endpoints, and to detect lateral movements to provide Active Directory protection, credential theft detection, and removal of exposed credentials. The company 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12331">
 partnered
 </a>
 with the cybersecurity and compliance company, Proofpoint to integrate SentinelOne Singularity XDR and Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection (TAP) solutions and provide organizations with threat intelligence, detection, and response across emails, endpoints, cloud, and identity management. In 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16912">
 March 2023
 </a>
 , SentinelOne partnered with cloud network security provider Wiz to provide end-to-end cloud security solutions by leveraging each company&rsquo;s platform. With their combined capabilities, the joint solution was claimed to detect and remediate cybersecurity threats faster than stand-alone platforms.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 The company&rsquo;s last private funding round was in November 2020, where it raised USD 267 million in a Series F funding round led by Tiger Global Management, and the company expects to use the funding to support the growth of its Singularity platform.
 
 
 In June 2021, SentinelOne 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3850">
 commenced 
 </a>
 trading in New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker &ldquo;S,&rdquo; raising USD 1.2 billion in its initial public offering (IPO) at an implied valuation of USD 8.9 billion. The company expected to use the proceeds for working capital, product development, capital expenditure, and administrative matters. The company also aimed to use part of the funds to acquire and invest in complementary businesses and technologies.
 
 
 SentinelOne 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13278">
 launched 
 </a>
 &ldquo;S Ventures&rdquo;, a USD 100 million venture fund, to invest in enterprise cybersecurity startups, in September 2022. S Ventures invested in Armorblox, an API email security platform, and Noetic Cyber, a continuous cyber asset management and controls platform. These companies joined its portfolio companies which include Torq, a no-code security automation platform, and 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/1695999">
 Laminar 
 </a>
 , a cloud-native data security startup.
 
 
 In 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17067">
 FY2023
 </a>
 , the company reported a revenue of USD 422.2 million, representing a YoY growth of 106% and an adjusted gross margin of 72%. The company saw its annual recurring revenue (ARR) growing at 88% to close at USD 548.7 million and the number of customers grew around 50% YoY to exceed 10,000 in Q4 FY2023. Management guidance for revenue for FY2024 stands in the range of USD 631 million and USD 640 million.
 
</div>

SentinelOne

<div>
 
 Lacework is a cloud security company offering solutions for enterprises to protect their cloud and container workloads at scale. These include tools that employ automation and machine learning in order to enable developers to build cloud applications securely, along with tools to monitor multi-cloud environments, detect misconfigurations and threats, and identify behavioral anomalies during runtime. As of November 2021, Lacework recorded more than 3x YoY growth in revenue and a 3.5x YoY increase in the customer base, which includes the likes of LogicMonitor, Hypergiant, and Sprinklr. Lacework employed over 1,000 staff as of March 2022, five times its headcount in January 2021. The company was however forced to lay off 20% of its headcount in May 2022 in a bid to improve its liquidity position amid uncertain economic conditions.
 
 
 Lacework announced its first-ever acquisition&mdash;the cloud-native security startup Soluble, in November 2021. Soluble provides automated testing and policy management to detect and remediate cloud misconfigurations and policy violations at the source code. Lacework will integrate Soluble&rsquo;s technology into its automated cloud security platform to expand into IaC remediation capabilities, which will enable Lacework to enhance existing workflows and protect software development lifecycles&mdash;at build, runtime, and the source code level. The company also launched new developer-focused features in its platform&mdash;vulnerability scanner, admission controller, risk-based scoring, extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) support&mdash;to detect and remediate container vulnerabilities in the development process.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 Lacework partnered with Google Cloud in February 2022, to launch its new patented Polygraph Data Platform in Google Cloud Marketplace to strengthen multi-cloud capabilities for joint customers, including a commitment to partner on integrations with Google Cloud Security Command Center (SCC) and jointly develop features in the future. The Lacework Polygraph Data Platform delivers automated visibility and threat detection across multi-cloud environments from build time through runtime without requiring manual oversight from security teams. Following this, Lacework also announced an undisclosed investment from Google Ventures (GV).
 
 
 Lacework partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in June 2023 to incorporate its composite alerts into Amazon&rsquo;s GuardDuty threat detection service, providing AWS users with enhanced threat alerts and context for investigation.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In November 2021, the company raised USD 1.3 billion in Series D funding at a valuation of USD 8.3 billion, co-led by Sutter Hill Ventures, Altimeter Capital, D1 Capital Partners, and Tiger Global Management. The company will utilize the funds to fuel product development; pursue strategic acquisitions; accelerate go-to-market efforts; hire additional staff; and expand its global presence. Along with the funding round, the company also announced plans to go public via an IPO or a direct listing in the future.
 
</div>

Lacework

<div>
 
 CrowdStrike offers a collection of next-generation cybersecurity products for endpoint security, cloud security, managed services, and threat analysis and response, along with professional services and consulting.
 
 
 CrowdStrike&rsquo;s endpoint security solutions include a cloud-delivered, next-generation antivirus (NGAV) that uses machine learning, artificial intelligence, and behavioral analytics to detect threats in company endpoints, replacing traditional signature-based solutions. In addition, CrowdStrike&rsquo;s endpoint offering also includes endpoint detection and response (EDR) for comprehensive monitoring, along with features to centrally control external device use. CrowdStrike&rsquo;s protection is delivered to the endpoint through a lightweight agent, which the company claims to be easily deployable and takes up only a minor share of the endpoint&rsquo;s processing power. The agent has the ability to identify malicious behavior even when the endpoint is offline. The company&rsquo;s cloud security offering includes tools for enterprises to detect threats and identify vulnerabilities during development and runtime of cloud-native applications. In addition, CrowdStrike also offers managed services, including technologies and human resources for companies to detect threats and respond to security incidents.
 
 
 In April 2023, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17659">
 the company announced &ldquo;Falcon Insight for IoT&rdquo;
 </a>
 , an EDR and extended detection response (XDR) solution for extended internet of things (XIoT) assets, expanding the protection capabilities of Crowdstrike Falcon to operational technology.&nbsp;
 
 
 CrowdStrike launched a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18980">
 generative AI assistant, &ldquo;Charlotte AI&rdquo;
 </a>
 , for its Falcon platform in late May 2023. The AI allows security teams to ask natural language questions on cybersecurity status, threats, and vulnerabilities, and surfaces actionable insights from Crowdstrike Falcon.
 
 
 CrowdStrike has undertaken various acquisitions to strengthen its product offerings. The company acquired the cloud data logging company Humio for USD 400 million in February 2021 to bring in the capabilities required to offer an extended detection and response (XDR) platform. The company acquired the data security startup 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6341">
 SecureCircle
 </a>
 in November 2021 to extend zero trust security to data on endpoints by integrating SecureCircle&rsquo;s technology into its Core Falcon platform. This will provide users with data usage policy enforcement and data access management based on their zero trust score and ensure that clients can detect and respond to threats at the device, user identity, and data layer. CrowdStrike acquired the Israel-based external attack surface management (EASM) startup 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13200">
 Reposify
 </a>
 in September 2022. Reposify scans the internet infrastructure of an organization to detect and eliminate any risks arising from exposed assets that are centralized or remote across on-premise, cloud, etc. Reposify leverages its proprietary algorithm and a large database of internet-facing assets to provide organizations with a comprehensive view of their external attack surface with a click of a button. Other acquisitions include the identity protection company Preempt Security for USD 96 million in September 2020, and malware analysis company Payload Security for an undisclosed amount in 2017.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 CrowdStrike expanded its footprint in Australia in July 2021 by partnering with local cybersecurity company Solista to assist Australian organizations in developing a toolset and framework in assessing their zero trust readiness, while detecting and remediating internal and external threats. 
 
 
 CrowdStrike 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9177">
 partnered
 </a>
 with the cloud network security platform, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/1102212">
 Adaptive Shield
 </a>
 in March 2022, to launch the latter&rsquo;s zero-trust SaaS security posture management solution in CrowdStrike Store and enable security teams to identify and remediate risks stemming from misconfigurations and misappropriated privileges through device posture visibility and continuous risk assessment across the SaaS stack. 
 
 
 In April 2022, CrowdStrike 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9660">
 partnered
 </a>
 with Mandiant to help joint customers with breach investigation and response and defense. As part of the partnership, CrowdStrike's cloud-based Falcon threat intelligence platform was integrated with Mandiant&rsquo;s incident response (IR) and proactive cybersecurity consulting services. 
 
 
 In September 2022, CrowdStrike 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13203">
 partnered
 </a>
 with the pure-play cyber insurance startup 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/604136">
 Coalition
 </a>
 , to protect 160,000 cyber insurance policyholders of Coalition against cyber attacks and help them comply with key contingencies required for a cyber insurance policy. CrowdStrike provided the policyholders with a 15-day free trial to its CrowdStrike Falcon platform alongside the option to purchase a discounted Falcon bundle. During the same period, CrowdStrike 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13160">
 partnered
 </a>
 with the API security startup, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/376753">
 Salt Security
 </a>
 , to integrate the latter&rsquo;s API discovery with its Falcon runtime protection on applications to provide a comprehensive view of an organization&rsquo;s attack surface and accelerate threat detection and response. The company also invested an undisclosed amount in Salt Security&rsquo;s Series D funding round. 
 
 
 In March 2023, CrowdStrike 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16868">
 formed a strategic alliance
 </a>
 with technology infrastructure and services provider Dell Technologies. Through the alliance, the companies planned on providing combined cyber defense solutions for organizations of all sizes to protect endpoints, cloud workloads, identity, and data. 
 
 
 Crowdstrike partnered with Google in April 2023 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17705">
 to combat phishing campaigns
 </a>
 , leveraging its AI analytics to detect malicious links and submit them to Google&rsquo;s Risk API, allowing the firm to display browser warnings.&nbsp;
 
 
 As of October 2021, CrowdStrike had 14,687 subscribers, comprising both public and private sector organizations. Key clients include companies such as Sony, Telstra, Rackspace, Sega, and ADP.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 The company went public through an initial public offering in June 2019, raising USD 610 million at a valuation of USD 6.7 billion. In a subsequent fundraise in January 2021, the company raised USD 750 million through eight-year unsecured notes. CrowdStrike also launched a USD 100 million investment vehicle&mdash;Falcon Fund II in partnership with the venture capital firm Accel in January 2022, which is 5x larger than its initial investment fund Falcon Fund, and serves as a catalyst to expand CrowdStrike&rsquo;s technology partnerships with companies that will gain access to CrowdStrike Store and can benefit from CrowdStrike&rsquo;s expertise and knowledge base.
 
 
 CrowdStrike&rsquo;s total revenue for FY2023 amounted to USD 2.24 billion and adjusted operating profit was USD 355.6 million, both up 54% and 81.2% YoY, respectively. Management guidance for revenue for FY2024 stands in the range of USD 2,955.1 million and USD 3,014.8 million, which implies an YoY growth of 31.9% to 34.6%, respectively.
 
</div>

CrowdStrike

Companies that provide platforms and technologies to protect enterprise data and infrastructure in the cloud from internal and external threats.

Companies that provide next-generation solutions for enterprises to protect endpoint devices such as computers, mobile devices, servers, and other connected enterprise devices.

Companies that provide solutions to protect industrial internet of things (IIoT) and operational technology (OT) devices.

Companies that provide AI-based tools to monitor an organization’s entire infrastructure to identify threats, provide tools for incident investigations, and help automate remediation tasks.

Companies that support businesses with AI-based cybersecurity platforms and human resources for 24/7 threat monitoring and response.

Companies that offer solutions for the protection of enterprise APIs and web applications against external threats such as scripting, bots, denial of service attacks, skimming, Personally Identifiable Information (PII) harvesting, etc.

Companies which provide solutions for enterprises to secure their cloud-native applications and workloads, across the entire development lifecycle.

Solutions in this industry hub are offered under a B2B SaaS model

Uses generative AI that allow automated cybersecurity workflows and manages security operations using natural language

Blockchain used to deploy platforms and store and verify data for tamper-proof security

Protects IoT and connected devices from cyberattacks

Uses AI/ML and behavioral analysis to proactively detect threats and/or automate response

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