Cymulate will spend $70M to help cybersecurity teams test their networks with attack simulations.


The cost of cybercrime is growing at an alarming rate of 15% per year, expected to reach $10.5 trillion by 2025. To meet the challenges this poses, organizations are turning to an increasing number of AI-powered tools to complement their existing ones. Security software and the work of their security teams. Today, a startup—Cymulate—has built a platform to help those groups automate and test how to improve their systems by simulating attacks that constantly stress networks. Real Attacks – They are announcing significant development funding after seeing huge demand for the devices.

The startup – founded in Tel Aviv, with a second in New York – has raised $70 million, a Series D investment to continue expanding globally and expand its technology (both organically and through acquisitions).

Today, the Simulate platform spans both on-premises and cloud networks, providing breach and attack simulations for endpoints, email and web gateways, and more. Automatic “Red Team”; And a “Purple Team” facility for organizations that don’t have the resources to assign people to a live red team to create and launch various security breach scenarios — a “holistic” solution for companies that want to make sure they’re getting the best overall, in the words of Eyal Wachsman, CEO of Simulate, in their network security architecture.

“We’re giving our customers a different approach to how they can do cyber security and gain insights. [on] All products implemented in the network,” he said in an interview. The resulting platform has received special attention in the current market situation. Even as companies continue to invest in security architecture, security teams are feeling the pressure of the market, which is affecting IT budgets and, at times, high expectations in an industry that already suffers from a shortage of expertise. (Simulet cites data from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, which says there is a global workforce shortage of 2.72 million security professionals.)

The idea with Simulate is to build something that helps organizations get the most out of what they have. “And ultimately, we’re giving our clients priority over where they want to invest by closing the gaps in their environment,” Wachsman said.

The round is led by One Peak, with participation from Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE), Vertex Ventures Israel, Vertex Growth and strategic backer Dell Technologies Capital. (All five backed Simulate in a $45 million series last year.) Relatively speaking, this is a big round for Simulate, doubling its total to $141 million, and while the startup isn’t disclosing the price, I understand from sources it’s around $500 million.

Wachsman pointed out that the money is coming off a big year for the startup (ironically, the ever-increasing cybersecurity issue and ever-increasing threat landscape spells good news for companies built to deal with that). Revenue has doubled, although no numbers are disclosed today, the company now has more than 200 employees and works with about 500 salaried customers in the enterprise and mid-market, including NTT, Telit and Euronext, before 300 customers a year.

Wachsman, who co-founded the company with Avihai Ben Yosef and Eyal Gruner, first came up with the idea of ​​building a platform to continuously monitor an organization’s threats in 2016 after working as a cybersecurity consultant for other companies for several years. He found that no matter how hard his clients and outside consultants tried to implement security solutions every year or even half a year, these benefits could be lost every time a malicious hacker made an unexpected move.

“If the bad guys decide to enter the organization, they can, so we have to find a different approach,” he said. He sought out AI and machine learning to build “a machine that allows you to continuously and on-demand test your security controls and security posture and get the results instantly.” Go ahead of the hijackers.”

Last year, Wachsman described Simulet’s approach to me as the largest cybersecurity consulting firm, but in reality the company has its own large team of cybersecurity researchers, white-hat hackers who try to find new vulnerabilities. New bugs, zero days and other vulnerabilities – to develop knowledge that powers the Simulate platform.

These insights are combined with other assets, such as the MITER ATT&CK framework, a knowledge base of threats, tactics and methods used by many other cybersecurity services, including building a series of authentication services that compete with Simulate. (Competitors include FireEye, Palo Alto Networks, Randori, AttackIQ, and many others.)

Simulate works in the form of network maps detailing a company’s risk profile, technical recommendations for remediation and mitigation, and executive summaries that can be presented to finance teams and executives auditing security spending. It has also built tools to help conduct security checks when integrating any services or IT with third parties, such as during an M&A process or when working in a supply chain.

Today, the company focuses on network security, which is enough on its own, but it leaves the door open for Simulet to acquire companies in other areas, such as application security — or to build one on its own. “This is something on our roadmap,” Wachsman said.

If potential M&A drives more fundraising for Cymulate, it could help the startup be in one of the next handful of categories to see more attention from investors.

“Cybersecurity is clearly an area that we think will benefit from the current macroeconomic environment, perhaps with capital-intensive businesses like consumer internet or food delivery,” said David Klein, managing partner at One Peak. In that, “Best Companies [are those] Missions that are mission critical to their customers… those will continue to attract the best multiples.



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