Founded nearly a decade ago, cyber firm CYE announced its first funding round from external investors, and it did it with a $120 million Mega-round, led by EQT Private Equity and 83North.

From service provider to SaaS

CYE was founded, in 2012 by CEO Reuven Aronashvili, as a secret strategic consultant to the cyber sector. Today, the company has over 200 customers, and in a chat with Geektime, Aronashvili comfortably names companies like Philitps, Novartis, Nokia, and other market leaders. Aronashvili explains that in 2018, the company decided to pivot into a SaaS product: “Currently, 80% of our revenue stream comes from subscriptions.” Following the SaaS move came the first funding round from 83North - despite Aronashvili claiming that the company has been profitable from day one.

“The decision to add EQT as a strategic investor, wasn’t really about the money, but rather the opportunity for accelerated growth and deep market penetration,” explains Aronashvili.

The company’s flagship product, Hyver, uses advanced algorithms and graph modeling to conduct a comprehensive cybersecurity assessment, covering the entire organization, as well as third-party vendors. Highly experienced 'red teams' then perform real, non-simulated attacks, allowing CYE to accurately predict possible attack routes, and best direct resources.

Very cool, but still, how are you different from the treasure chest of other startups running attack prediction and simulation models?

Aronashvili: “The cyber sphere is flooded with loads of different solutions, Gartner has 120 different categories, there’s a lot of competition and stress, but in reality - we continue to hear about major organizations getting hacked, and despite the increase in investment, successful attacks continue to rise… CYE isn’t based on predicting the future by looking at the past, but rather focuses on the now, in real-time. CYE’s engine combines both mechanical and human elements - which we call ‘The depth of the human brain and the scale of the technology. We don’t believe in lining up the problems, we want to provide dedicate solutions that are adjusted per customer.”

CYE employs a team of 70 at its Israel headquarters, in addition to hundreds of ethical hackers around the globe.