VCs say these 30 cybersecurity startups will blow up in 2019

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Altitude Networks

Altitude Networks

Startup: Altitude Networks

VC: Cack Wilhelm, partner at Accomplice VC

Relationship: Investor

Total raised: $2 million

What it does: Altitude Networks provides tools to help companies clamp down on their data, so it doesn't find its way to the bad guys — protecting both against hack attack, and from absent-mindedly sending sensitive information to the wrong person.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Led by former-CISO at Twitter, the team is trying to solve enterprise security for enterprise SaaS applications, particularly the question of cloud data access and protection — who has shared which document with whom? This is a top concern for CISOs and not something cloud vendors solve."

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Vectra

Vectra

Startup: Vectra

VC: Aaron Jacobson, partner at New Enterprise Associates

Relationship: None

Total raised: $122.74 million

What it does: Vectra develops a system that detects network intrusion and suspicious activity, allowing companies to secure themselves against cyberattacks.

Why it's hot in 2019: "They run a bunch of AI and ML to detect breaches. They build a whole bunch of models. It's a killer team with really sophisticated and advanced technology."

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Armorblox

Armorblox

Startup: Armorblox

VC: Steve Herrod, managing director at General Catalyst

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $16.5 million

What it does: Armorblox uses artificial intelligence to analyze and protect text-based communication from security threats.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Many companies claim to use AI to create better security solutions, often with more marketing bluster than technical substance. Armorblox is truly and deeply leveraging a branch of AI called Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to analyze and protect a company's most frequent form of communication - text. What's more, they can provide protection from phishing, data leakage, and other threats across all of the forms of text-based communication in a company - email, Slack, documents, texting, and more."

StackRox

StackRox

Startup: StackRox

VC: Tomasz Tunguz

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $39 million

What it does: StackRox helps software developers make sure that the code they're writing is secure against hackers right from the very beginning.

Why it's hot in 2019: "As enterprises globally embrace DevOps, containers and Kubernetes to drive business innovation, StackRox is leading the industry in securing these environments."

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Pindrop

Pindrop

Startup: Pindrop

VC: Victoria Treyger, general partner and managing director at Felicis Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total raised: $223.3 million

What it does: Pindrop develops technology that detects phone fraud and provides identity and security for phones and other devices.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Because their technology monitors calls to identify basic and more sophisticated fraud including social engineering. They are already working with the top Financial Institutions around the globe."

Namogoo

Namogoo

Startup: Namogoo

VC: David Blumberg, managing partner at Blumberg Capital

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $29 million

What it does: Namogoo detects and blocks unauthorized web ads, helping companies prevent customers from being hijacked and diverted to competitors.

Why it's hot in 2019: "The upshot is not only cyber security protection for the enterprise against Java injection attacks, but also yields improved customer experience, increased website conversion and demonstrably higher sales. "

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Contrast Security

Contrast Security

Startup: Contrast Security

VC: Steve Herrod, managing director at General Catalyst

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $122 million

What it does: Contrast Security helps developers build secure applications, no matter which platform they're running on.

Why it's hot in 2019: "One of the most exciting notions in cybersecurity is 'self-protecting applications.' Contrast Security helps developers build security directly into their applications, and this brings a number of benefits."

Sysdig

Sysdig

Startup: Sysdig

VC: Salil Deshpande, partner at Bain Capital Ventures

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $121.55 million

What it does: Sysdig offers security, monitoring and troubleshooting for software container environments.

Why it's hot in 2019: "There's a particular trend in security that you should be aware of — that security and monitoring are converging...And the startup that is doing this converging is Sysdig."

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Very Good Security

Very Good Security

Startup: Very Good Security

VC: Victoria Treyger, general partner and managing director at Felicis Ventures

Relationship: None

Total raised: $9.9 million

What it does: Very Good Security helps companies control and manage their data, and helps them stay compliant with regulatory needs.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Because they help small companies operate on sensitive data without having to deal with securing it or dealing with the liability."

Medigate

Medigate

Startup: Medigate

VC: David Blumberg, managing partner at Blumberg Capital

Relationship: Investor

Total raised: $20.35 million

What it does: Medigate helps hospitals secure the medical devices on their internal networks.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Hospital networks struggle to maintain up-to-date security and integrity of their networks while staying in compliance with the FDA’s stringent certification mandates for software updates and patches. Medigate discovers, characterizes and protects a vast array of mission-critical devices using a three-tier firewall to deliver both compliance and security."



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BioCatch

BioCatch

Startup: BioCatch

VC: Matthew Kinsella, managing director at Maverick Ventures

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $43.81 million

What it does: Instead of passwords, BioCatch continuously authenticates the user's identity by watching and analyzing how they use their device.

Why it's hot in 2019: "2018 was a year where behavioral biometrics started to really gain broad market acceptance and understanding and I believe 2019 will be an inflection point in the adoption curve, likely first in the banking and financial vertical and then moving beyond...BioCatch is the leader in behavioral biometrics."

Tortuga Logic

Tortuga Logic

Startup: Tortuga Logic

VC: Lior Susan, founder and partner at Eclipse Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total raised: $2.81 million

What it does: Tortuga Logic develops products that detect and prevent security breaches in hardware.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Hardware security is a critical aspect of cybersecurity. As we put more trust in computers to drive our cars, fly or planes, and perform our surgeries, additional security measures are needed."



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PerimeterX

PerimeterX

Startup: PerimeterX

VC: Ariel Tseitlin, partner at Scale Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $78 million

What it does: PerimeterX develops behavior-based threat protection technology for the web, cloud, and mobile apps, warding against bots and criminals.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Recent attacks like 3ve and Mirai have been directly linked to massive botnets, and PerimeterX is the only solution available for protecting enterprises from the very automation attackers often use to detect vulnerabilities."



Obsidian Security

Obsidian Security

Startup: Obsidian Security

VCs: Asheem Chandna and Sarah Guo of Greylock Partners

Relationship: Both are investors and board members.

Total raised: $29.5 million

What it does: Obsidian helps companies guard their cloud computing infrastructure and applications against hackers.

Why it's hot in 2019: "As companies move to the cloud, identity is the new perimeter, but there’s no guard watching that perimeter today. Obsidian fills that hole, and does it in a way that is uniquely smart and scalable."

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Aptible

Aptible

Startup: Aptible

VC: Matthew Kinsella, managing director at Maverick Ventures

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $12.05 million

What it does: Aptible provides an all-in-one platform that helps companies stay in compliance with regulatory requirements and generally increase their data security.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Privacy is incredibly top of mind today, and companies are expected to do more and more to keep our data private. Regulations are being developed, most recently GDPR and soon the California Consumer Privacy Act, and companies need to stay in compliance with these regulations. This is difficult and highly complex, especially for small companies."

Styra

Styra

Startup: Styra

VC: Megan Holston-Alexander, senior associate at Unusual Ventures

Relationship: Investor

Total raised: $13.5 million

What it does: Styra allows companies to secure cloud environments and applications, including those built on the popular Kubernetes open-source cloud platform.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Styra enables enterprises to define, enforce, and validate Kubernetes security...This will continue to be critical as more companies will need to create policy, validate rules, enforce them early and see results."

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Cybellum

Cybellum

Startup: Cybellum

VC: David Blumberg, managing partner at Blumberg Capital

Relationship: Investor

Total raised: $2.5 million

What it does: Cybellum helps manufacturers assess the cybersecurity risk introduced by the components used to build cars.

Why it's hot in 2019: "As an ever larger percentage of automotive components are electronic, intelligent and run by software, the need for Cybellum’s binary software inspection security solution becomes more imperative and valuable for the auto industry. Cybellum saves money and saves lives."

Agari

Agari

Startup: Agari

VC: Ariel Tseitlin, partner at Scale Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $84.95 million

What it does: Agari uses artificial intelligence to prevent "spearphishing" and other malicious e-mail based attacks.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Enterprises are moving to the cloud faster than ever and email is leading the way....Agari Secure Email Cloud is the only cloud-native email security solution that offers protection from the most sophisticated email attacks, like business email compromise and spear phishing."

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Expanse

Expanse

Startup: Expanse

VC: Aaron Jacobson, partner at New Enterprise Associates

Relationship: Investor

Total raised: $34.31 million

What it does: Expanse develops a platform that monitors the entire web for devices belonging to its corporate customers, and sounds the alarm if it finds a security vulnerability.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Expanse is doing well. We think of them as an Internet-wide port scanner. They can scan the entire web. The team from DARPA has done really well."

Exabeam

Exabeam

Startup: Exabeam

VC: Theresia Gouw, founding partner at Aspect Ventures, and Matt Howard, general partner at Norwest Venture Partners

Relationship: Both are investors and board members.

Total raised: $118 million

What it does: Exabeam develops technology that helps security analysts detect attacks through machine learning that analyzes user behavior.

Why it's hot in 2019: “As cybersecurity attacks become more sophisticated and cyberwarfare becomes a reality, companies will need to laser in on how and why these events happen. Understanding and analyzing data is a critical piece to the cybersecurity puzzle, and companies will need a solution like Exabeam to get better insights into how and why cyberattacks happen, to better prevent in the future.”

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Randori

Randori

Startup: Randori

VC: Cack Wilhelm, partner at Accomplice VC

Relationship: Investor

Total raised: $9.75 million

What it does: Randori is an attack platform that provides "red-teaming" as a service — basically, staging simulated hack attacks to test for vulnerabilities and gaps in the security response.

Why it's hot in 2019: "[They're] trying to help companies gain an attacker's perspective and do so continuously. They have amassed a great team and they have early traction with a handful of strong customers."



Illusive Networks

Illusive Networks

Startup: Illusive Networks

VC: Aaron Jacobson, partner at New Enterprise Associates

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $30 million

What it does: Illusive Networks develops cybersecurity software that identifies attackers and provides false information to them to disrupt attacks, while alerting the customers.

Why it's hot in 2019: "It shows if someone on your network was nefarious and how to clean it up. They give visibility to a CISO. Now you can clean it all up to make it harder for someone to move around (on your network)."

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Aporeto

Aporeto

Startup: Aporeto

VC: Matt Howard, managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $37.8 million

What it does: Aporeto develops software that secures applications on public, private, or hybrid clouds.

Why it's hot in 2019: “As technology becomes more agile and companies increase their rate of innovation, they are implementing microservices, containers and the cloud as part of their overall strategy. A critical piece to this technology adoption is ensuring that security is implemented through every step of the development process, and Aporeto’s approach to Zero Trust Security does just that.”

HackerOne

HackerOne

Startup: HackerOne

VC: Aaron Jacobson, partner at New Enterprise Associates

Relationship: Investor

Total raised: $74 million

What it does: HackerOne helps companies pay bug bounties to ethical hackers who find flaws in their software and services.

Why it's hot in 2019: “Marten Mikos is a phenomenal CEO. They've got a great team. They're a market leader in crowdsourced penetration testing. They've been having a phenomenal year after year."

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CyberGRX

CyberGRX

Startup: CyberGRX

VC: Ariel Tseitlin, partner at Scale Venture Partners

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $59 million

What it does: CyberGRX helps companies conduct risk assessments on the software and services provided to them by outside vendors.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Third-party data breaches are on the rise and creating headline-grabbing headaches for companies like Target, Sony, Best Buy, and Delta Airlines. CyberGRX is developing a more thorough reconnaissance of third-party vendors and their accompanying risks by partnering with some of the world's most well-known enterprises to stop data breaches before they happen."



Cato Networks

Cato Networks

Startup: Cato Networks

VC: Theresia Gouw, founding partner of Aspect Ventures

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $125 million

What it does: Cato Networks build security directly into cloud-based enterprise networks.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Enterprises of all sizes can now gain seamless access to advanced security capabilities, without scalability or geographical restrictions, and without the need to deploy and manage numerous security point products."

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Awake Security

Awake Security

Startup: Awake Security

VCs: Asheem Chandna and Sarah Guo of Greylock Partners

Relationship: Both are investors, and Chandna is a board member.

Total raised: $31.2 million

What it does: Awake Security is a network traffic analysis company that detects incidents and provides information to the response team.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Every large business needs 'ground truth' for what happens in their environment, on prem or cloud. Network data is the best source of that truth, but it’s been traditionally hard and expensive to capture and store — and required experts to analyze. Awake has done the tough work to solve that."

Sqreen

Sqreen

Startup: Sqreen

VCs: Asheem Chandna and Sarah Guo of Greylock Partners

Relationship: Guo is an investor and a board member.

Total raised: $16.42 million

What it does: Sqreen develops a platform that manages application security for developers, operations, and security teams.

Why it's hot in 2019: "As every company becomes a software company, application security is increasingly important and traditional solutions are about as effective as a screen door on a submarine. Sqreen’s Application Security Management is developer friendly and agile, matching the way we architect and run modern apps."

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CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike

Startup: CrowdStrike

VC: Aaron Jacobson, partner at New Enterprise Associates

Relationship: None

Total raised: $481.15 million

What it does: CrowdStrike develops a cybersecurity platform that prevents, detects, and responds to cyberattacks in real time using artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Why it's hot in 2019: "CrowdStrike is doing really well. They will IPO at some point. They're a leader in terms of next generation endpoint companies. I think they'll be a large public company when they go out."

Menlo Security

Menlo Security

Startup: Menlo Security

VC: Steve Herrod, managing director at General Catalyst

Relationship: Investor and board member

Total raised: $85 million

What it does: Menlo Security protects users from malware attacks from the web, email and attachments by running applications in a secure cloud environment.

Why it's hot in 2019: "Menlo Security has taken a fascinating new 'isolation' approach to protect users from web-, email-, and attachment-borne attacks. Most cybersecurity energy goes into detecting bad things and then trying to prevent them from causing damage. Menlo Security takes a very different approach, assuming threats are going to happen, but keeping them from causing damage. It's rare to find a company that can 100% guarantee protection from a large class of attacks, but Menlo Security is actually able to do so."

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