The Color White, Forgerock IPO, Ditching Your Microsoft Password, & Neosec – ESW #243
This week in the Enterprise Security News: Funders Fund Values Identity Startup Persona at $1.5 billion, Neosec Emerges from Stealth With $20.7 million in funding, F5 acquires threat stack, ForgeRock IPOs tomorrow, GitLab announces their IPO, You can now ditch your Microsoft password, Vendor Security 2.0, & more!
Announcements
In an overabundance of caution, we have decided to flip this year’s SW Unlocked to a virtual format. The safety of our listeners and hosts is our number one priority. We will miss seeing you all in person, but we hope you can still join us at Security Weekly Unlocked Virtual! The event will now take place on Thursday, Dec 16 from 9am-6pm ET. You can still register for free at https://securityweekly.com/unlocked.
InfoSec World 2021 is proud to announce its keynote lineup for this year’s event! Hear from Robert Herjavec plus heads of security at the NFL, TikTok, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Stanford University, and more… Plus, Security Weekly listeners save 20% on Digital Pass registration! Visit https://securityweekly.com/isw2021 to register now!
Hosts
- 1. FUNDING: Founders Fund Values Identity Startup Persona at $1.5 BillionRaised $150m in a Series C. Focused on identity verification. Kinda like the future of background checks, but more about making sure you're really you (using Biometrics & other methods) than looking for red flags in your background. $1.5bn valuation on $10-15m revenue? A 100-150x valuation? Sure, why not?
- 2. FUNDING: Neosec Emerges From Stealth With $20.7 Million in FundingAPI Security company: "Neosec aims to identify all APIs used within an organization, based on existing logs, to constantly maintain an inventory of APIs, and even generate documentation for previously unknown APIs. The platform also discovers APIs transferring sensitive data, any existing discrepancies, and vulnerable or misconfigured APIs."
- 3. FUNDING: Ketch raises another $20M as demand grows for its privacy data control platform – TechCrunch"providing online privacy regulation and data compliance" - Came out of stealth earlier this year, announced a $23m Series A, and then six months later, they're now announcing an additional $20m in funding. Looking to automate how customer data is handled based on their privacy preferences, hopefully reducing human error as a factor?
- 4. FUNDING: Kolide, a ‘transparency-first’ endpoint security platform, raises $17MSounds like they're going in more of a device management direction, rather than Uptycs's more EDR/threat prevention/detection direction with their OSQuery-based product. I had heard rumblings about business/organizational/funding challenges a few years ago, so it's good to see some stability now.
- 5. FUNDING: Stairwell secures $20M Series A to help organizations outsmart attackers – TechCrunchFormer founder of Google's Chronicle talking about what this new startup is going to do for the first time. Some breathless claims, but I'm struggling to understand how this take on threat intel is going to differentiate in a threat intel market that already looks oversaturated.
- 6. ACQUISITION: F5 Enhances Cloud Security Portfolio with Acquisition of Threat StackThis market segment seems to have collapsed. Check Point picked up Dome9 back in 2018 and CloudPassage got picked up by PE-owned Fidelis in what MUST have been a fire sale. Also, didn't realize Anup Ghosh was running things over at Fidelis!
- 7. IPO: ForgeRock to go public as IPO prices above the expected range, valuing company at nearly $2 billionForgeRock going public tomorrow on the NYSE! Pricing looks around what you'd expect for a cybersecurity vendor. Matt's going to have another one to add to his security money watchlist!
- 8. IPO: GitLab announces their intent to IPO and files a public S-1S-1s are always fun to dig into and it has been interesting to watch GitLab's trajectory after Microsoft's Github acquisition. Aiming to be your one-stop-shop for DevOps workflow and tool stack!
- 9. TRENDS: You Can Now Sign-in to Your Microsoft Accounts Without a PasswordMicrosoft is one of the first to go passwordless for consumer logins! Who saw that coming?
- 10. It’s Time for Vendor Security 2.0
- 11. SQUIRREL, PART 1: Purdue record for the whitest paint appears in latest edition of ‘Guinness World Records’
- 12. SQUIRREL, PART 2: The Plot to Steal the Color White From DuPont
