Today (Thursday) XM Cyber, an Israeli cyber-security startup that was founded by former Mossad Director Tamir Pardo and a group of veteran executives from Israel’s intelligence community, announced the completion of a $17 million Series B funding round, led by Our Innovation Fund, Nasdaq Ventures, Macquarie Capital, and Swarth Group.
A continuous threat simulation, without interfering with operations
XM Cyber develops a continuous cyber-attack simulation platform that provides insight into the best path of weak-point remediation, while also pointing out critical network vulnerabilities. Effectively, reducing costs and allowing cyber -security teams to focus on critical tasks while the platform simulates attacks in the background without interfering with day-to-day operations. This resulted in the company launching a specialized simulation product for AWS environments towards the end of 2019.
If this simulation tactic sounds a bit familiar, it’s because it is. Over the past few years, we’ve noticed the trend of cyber-companies developing hacker hunting simulation solutions, so we asked XM Cyber CTO and co-founder, Boaz Gorodissky, what makes his company’s solution stand out among the rest. According to Gorodissky, the company’s platform is backed by dozens of patents listed in both the U.S. and Europe. Furthermore, the company’s platform works, like its founders, in the shadows “in a continuous and safe way, without interrupting bigger networks that are separated into different segments that are integrated into cloud technologies. The best thing is, that operating the system and producing insights doesn’t really require a lot of effort or skill from the customer’s side.”
Having closed the deal mostly during the COVID-19 crisis, company CEO and co-founder Noam Erez explains that the pandemic was able to shake up economies and bring many companies to their knees. However, from XM Cyber’s point of view, the pandemic brought some positives with it as well: “Rather than cripple the company, the virus brought with it new business opportunities. With many employees moving to remote work, this move actually expanded the cyber-attack landscape and opportunities for hackers to wiggle their way into organizational networks and get to the critical data.” Erez reports an increase in interest in the product and claims that especially during these times, the COVID crisis has opened the eyes of investors who realized that this product is more relevant than ever.
Why did your Series B bring in less than your Series A?
Erez explains: “As of today, following the significant rise in company revenue, against 2018 the first year the company started sales, the funding round is constructed according to necessity compared to incoming revenue. During 2019, the company’s revenue shot up by 300% compared to the year before. The funding round hit the targeted investment quota and estimated company value all while facing incredibly challenging times.” Based on his reports, the company’s value was completely unaffected by the ongoing global crisis.
XM Cyber was founded in 2016 by Tamir Pardo, Boaz Gorodissky, and Noam Erez. The startup has 72 employees under its belt which are split between Australia, Israel, and the U.S.A. Including this latest investment brings the company’s total raised capital to $49 million.
