Secure Ventures with Kyle McNulty

Josh Kamdjou is CEO and Founder of Sublime Security. Josh started Sublime after realizing just how easy it was for him to break into companies with phishing emails. He wanted to build a solution that better addressed the tailored environment of each organization such as historical data. Now the company has raised over $80 million from leading VCs such as IVP, Index Ventures, and Decibel. Before Sublime, Josh worked as a DoD hacker for 9 years.In the episode we discuss his emphasis on leveraging the attacker perspective, the fundamental difficulties of email security, his conviction in product-led growth, and more.Website: https://sublime.security/Sponsor: VulnCheck

Jon is co-founder and CEO of Halcyon, which is building an endpoint solution fully focused on anti-ransomware. Halcyon recently raised at a $1B valuation in 2024. Jon started his career in cybersecurity consulting for a decade before joining Cylance in 2014 as Chief Research Officer. After his stint at Cylance, in 2017 Jon founded Boldend, which was building offensive cyber capabilities to be used by the US intelligence community for information gathering and electronic warfare. Boldend was acquired by Sixgen three years after Jon stepped down as CEO to start Halcyon given the critical impact of ransomware on US companies.

Tushar was the CEO of Attivo Networks for a decade before selling to SentinelOne for $600 million dollars in 2022. Attivo Networks built deception technology which would trick attackers into attacking fake infrastructure. A common form of deception is a honeypot, which is an intentionally vulnerable server so defenders can gather information about attackers such as their IP address or attack techniques. Attivo provided comprehensive deception solutions and served five of the Fortune 10. In the episode we talk about Tushar's learnings from a decade at Cisco, the unique origin story of Attivo and its founders, and the sale process to SentinelOne.

Pete is CEO and co-founder of Realm Security, which is building a security data fabric to help companies manage their disparate log sources for monitoring tools. For companies spending millions of dollars every year on contracts with Splunk, Realm is the light at the end of the tunnel that can help them move to a cheaper SIEM tool. Pete started his career at Rapid7 after dropping out of college, and he worked his way through a variety of cybersecurity sales leadership roles since, including companies acquired by CarbonBlack and Cisco. In the episode we talk about his emphasis on moving roles for new learning opportunities, his obsession with customer problems rather than potential solutions, and how Realm's message is unique in a cyber ecosystem where vendors are always asking for CISOs to grow their budget. Website Sponsor: VulnCheck

Chris Peterson, Founder and CEO of LogRhythm and currently with RADICL, shares insights on navigating growth and private equity transitions. Gil Garone, Co-founder of Orca, emphasizes the importance of value creation and leadership in tech startups. Cybersecurity legal expert Andy Lunsford discusses evolving privacy laws and the implications of incidents like CrowdStrike. The conversation explores AI’s role in enhancing credibility and the challenges of integrating cybersecurity tools, underscoring the need for a unified approach in protecting data.

Odysseas is co-founder and CEO of Phylax, a web3 security company building a security layer for blockchain-based protocols. Before Phylax, Odysseas worked at Nomad, a crypto exchange which suffered a $190M breach in August 2022. In the episode, we talk about his unique background as a developer relations manager, the approach law enforcement takes to recover funds in the wake of a crypto breach, the different attack surfaces for the web3 ecosystem, and more. If you are not a blockchain expert, do not worry, me neither. There are still plenty of interesting high level conversation points throughout!

Maksym is CEO and founder of Mantis Analytics, providing holistic security awareness to organizations through a social media monitoring platform. The tool combs media channels to identify risks to a customer's business and escalates alerts accordingly. I thought this would be an interesting opportunity to look at the broader security world to understand some parallels with pure cybersecurity. Maksym worked in business intelligence and product management for two decades before the Ukraine war inspired him to start something that would make a difference. In the episode we talk about the war events leading to the creation of Mantis, the pivot from a focus on solely disinformation, the problems with keyword searches with the growth of generative AI, and more.  Website Sponsor: VulnCheck

Ben is founder and CEO of watchTowr, building an external attack surface management tool (EASM) that performs automated penetration testing and red teaming activities. Before founding watchTowr in 2021, Ben worked as a security consultant for a decade focused largely on penetration testing. And as Ben describes in the episode, what started as a combination of cobbled together scripts from his previous experience has since grown into a comprehensive automation platform. Website: https://watchtowr.com/ Sponsor: VulnCheck

Uri is co-founder and CEO of Refine Intelligence, which is focused on anti money laundering and check fraud. Uri previously came on the podcast in 2022 and talked about the evolution of fraud prevention over the last 20 years. I re-released that episode back in August because I loved the story so much. At that time, we talked mostly about his previous company, BioCatch, which sold a majority stake to Permira earlier this year at a 1.3 billion dollar valuation. In this episode, we pick up the story with the evolution of fraud over the last few years, including why money laundering and check fraud still present such massive risk areas to banks. Website: refineintelligence.com Sponsor: VulnCheck

David is CEO and Founder of Naoris Protocol, which provides a blockchain-based mesh architecture for improved endpoint integrity. The company was founded in 2016 and has since raised over $30 million. Before Naoris, David was a cyber leader at a range of global companies including AT&T, Electronic Arts, London City Airport, and others. In the episode, we discuss his background discovering cybersecurity in a small farming village in Portugal and the real-world applications of blockchain technology which have yet to become popularized.