Secure Ventures with Kyle McNulty

• Virtru | CEO John Ackerly on Data Security and Building a Company with your Brother

  With me in this episode is John Ackerly, co-founder and CEO of Virtru. John started Virtru with his brother Will over a decade ago to make data security more pervasive across mediums such as emails and files. Virtru has raised over $150 million to this point from investors such as ICONIQ and Bessemer and built a very healthy business on one of the core pillars of cybersecurity. John has an atypical background in business well-complemented by his brother's technical experience at NSA. One of my favorite lines from the episode: he always thought he would start a business with his other brother. In the episode we discuss pricing strategy, which is certainly not all science, the founder outlook when starting a company, founding with family, and more. Website: https://www.virtru.com/

  --------  

  39:03

  --------

  39:03
• SPLX | CEO Kris Kamber on Founder Lessons from Sales and AI Security

  Kris Kamber is CEO of SPLX AI. SPLX performs security testing and red teaming for AI agents, helping organizations detect vulnerabilities in their constantly expanding agent deployments. Before SPLX, Kris worked a handful of sales jobs, starting in telecom before hustling his way into Zscaler. I enjoyed asking him about the specific lessons from working in sales such as setting metrics and compensation. He's the first person who has described to me a workplace filled with arrogant and cocky people and also illustrated why he was attracted to that environment. We also touched on how he met his co-founder through a conversation on a plane and what compelled him to build a company at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity given his background.SPLX Website

  --------  

  45:35

  --------

  45:35
• Onapsis | CEO Mariano Nunez on Securing SAP Applications

  Mariano founded Onapsis back in 2009 to address the challenges securing a growing new class of technology: ERP systems. After working at CYBSEC for 5 years doing offensive security research, he discovered just how vulnerable SAP applications could be. Onapsis is sneakily a juggernaut, having raised a $55 million Series D in 2020. And while they started focused on SAP, they have since expanded into related tools such as Oracle. They have certainly established themselves as core to securing an often overlooked component of IT infrastructure. In the conversation we discuss the founding story, why SAP couldn't do this themselves, and how he has thought about growth opportunities over the last 16 years.Website

  --------  

  42:50

  --------

  42:50
• Operant AI | CEO Vrajesh Bhavsar on Holistic AI Security

  Vrajesh is co-founder and CEO at Operant AI. Operant AI is a holistic AI security platform, helping organizations discover, detect, and defend AI deployments. Operant raised a $10 million dollar Series A last fall from Felicis and SineWave, and the company continues to expand its offerings within AI security. Before Operant, Vrajesh worked at Apple, Qualcomm, Arm, and Scaled Inference, rounding out an exceptionally technical background with several quality technology companies. In the episode we discuss his career transition from extremely technical, kernel-level engineering to management, how he thinks about timing a market, and how the vision for Operant's product was cemented from day one rather than bolted together over time.Website

  --------  

  46:23

  --------

  46:23
• Descope | Co-founder Rishi Bhargava on Cybersecurity GTM

  With me in this episode is Rishi Bhargava, co-founder of Descope. Rishi has a standout background having founded Demisto in 2015 and then selling to Palo Alto Networks in 2019 for over $500 million dollars. Before Demisto, he was a VP at McAfee and Intel. Rishi is extremely knowledgable about go-to-market in the cyber domain, and we dove into his lessons learned over his career and how he has applied those to Descope for customer identity.Website

  --------  

  44:28

  --------

  44:28

More Business podcasts

Trending Business podcasts

About Secure Ventures with Kyle McNulty