ZeroNorth raises $10M to accelerate its focus on software and infrastructure risk management

ZeroNorth, the security industry’s first provider of orchestrated risk management, launched with a $10 million Series A investment led by ClearSky Ventures with participation from Crosslink Capital, Rally Ventures and existing investor Petrillo Capital.

The funding will enable ZeroNorth, formerly known as CYBRIC, to accelerate its newly-extended focus on software and infrastructure risk management by strengthening research and development, and investing in sales, marketing and services to meet growing demand for its platform. This round brings the company’s total funding to $18.6 million.

Organizations including Rodan & Fields, the University of Massachusetts and Zerto rely on ZeroNorth to proactively manage software and infrastructure risks as the pace of digital transformation continues to accelerate.

“Today every organization is in the software business. Software and the infrastructure it runs on are critical assets and continuous deployment is essential – but not at the expense of security,” said Peter Kuper, managing director at ClearSky Ventures.

“ZeroNorth makes it possible for organizations to have both fast and secure production software – something that was considered incompatible before. Most importantly, ZeroNorth makes it possible for organizations to easily discover and remediate vulnerabilities without disrupting the software development process. Its orchestration platform will be critical to protecting this software-defined world and why we are so excited to be a supporter of this effort.”

ZeroNorth accelerates and scales proactive software and infrastructure risk management by continuously orchestrating the discovery and remediation of vulnerabilities. Its “mission-control” orchestration platform enables organizations to construct and manage an automated and consistent software security program.

As a result, the platform directly provides board-level visibility into business risk, the assurance of better security, continuous proof of compliance and a more cost-effective risk management program.

Traditionally, organizations rely on multiple scanning tools to identify vulnerabilities in different phases of development, deployment and operation. However, each tool classifies vulnerabilities differently, has its own console and requires a dedicated employee to manage it.

Among the many challenges to this approach, it does not allow for a single, full-stack view of the constantly changing risks inherent in continuous deployment. In addition, relying on disconnected tools becomes expensive and difficult to staff amid a widening talent gap in cybersecurity. ZeroNorth transforms these manual and siloed efforts into an orchestrated, comprehensive and real-time discovery and remediation process.

“ZeroNorth gives us the visibility and assurance that we’re lowering risks to the organization. And it does so while reducing the staffing requirements for implementing and managing existing scanning tools and increasing their collective value,” said Amit Bhardwaj, vice president, IT security and compliance at Rodan & Fields.

“ZeroNorth is an important partner that gives us confidence in our security posture.”

Expanded focus, expanded team

As a result of this funding round, Peter Kuper and Patrick Heim from ClearSky Ventures, and Art Coviello from Rally Ventures will join Enrico Petrillo and Ernesto DiGiambattista on ZeroNorth’s board of directors. In addition, the company welcomes John Steven as its new chief technology officer (CTO) and Alan Deane as vice president of worldwide sales.

With more than two decades of software security experience and specific expertise in threat modeling, security architecture, static analysis and security testing, John Steven will lead ZeroNorth’s technical direction in defining and delivering solutions that will enable organizations to improve security through their digital transformation journey.

Prior to joining ZeroNorth, John was senior director at Synopsys, served as co-CTO at Cigital and was co-founder and CTO of Codiscope. John will team with vice president of engineering Andrei Bezdedeanu to drive innovation in the ZeroNorth platform that enables organizations to stay ahead of the ever-evolving threat landscape.

Alan Deane has more than two decades of experience leading worldwide sales organizations for cybersecurity startups and established industry players. He was most recently vice president of worldwide sales at DFLabs and spent six years as vice president of worldwide sales and field operations at Qumas. He served similar stints as vice president of the sales-risk & compliance business unit at McAfee, and vice president of sales at Foundstone.

“Proactively managing security and risk is about more than application security testing orchestration. Application vulnerability correlation and threat vulnerability management are important pieces of the puzzle that we’re delivering for customers grappling with the realities of digital transformation and managing risk in new environments,” said Ernesto DiGiambattista, ZeroNorth’s CEO and founder.

“We now have a broader focus that called for an expanded team and a new brand to match. With these pieces in place and the support of world-class investors, we’re ready to make proactive security a reality for organizations worldwide.”

from Help Net Security http://bit.ly/2DFnBAB

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