As the quantity of cyberattacks grows, there’s rising curiosity from the company sector in tech to assist automate responses to breaches. Per a 2023 survey from analytics agency Devo, 80% of safety leaders anticipated expanded investments in safety automation expertise this yr; most cited the tech’s potential to assist cyber risk mitigation. Projections say that the marketplace for safety automation may very well be value $26.6 billion by 2032.
One vendor that’s skilled outsized success is Torq, which applies AI to summary away repetitive, onerous security-related duties.
On the again of a buyer base that features Procter & Gamble, Chipotle, PepsiCo, and Wiz, Torq’s annual recurring income (ARR) has eclipsed $24 million, CEO Ofer Smadari tells TechCrunch.
“We have tripled revenue across two consecutive years, and are projecting $100 million ARR by fiscal year 2026,” he stated. “We have more than 150 direct enterprise customers, as well as dozens of partners that are providing services to nearly 900 enterprises worldwide based on our platform.”
This traction probably helped Torq to shut a $70 million Collection C funding spherical earlier in September. Led by Evolution Fairness Companions, the spherical brings Torq’s complete raised to $192 million.
Favorable market circumstances most likely helped, too.
In Q2 2024, VCs funneled $4.4 billion into cybersecurity companies, in accordance to Crunchbase, marking the strongest funding quarter for the sector since 2022. Funding in Q2 was up 144% year-over-year and 63% from Q1, whereas dealmaking throughout the 2 quarters practically doubled versus within the first half of 2023.
“Growing in a responsible manner results in internal efficiencies that are already in place in various important programs powering our operations, from R&D through go-to-market,” Smadari stated. “We have built our company in a very fiscally responsible way.”
Smadari began Torq with Leonid Belkind and Eldad Livni in 2020. Smadari beforehand based Luminate, a zero belief platform that Symantec acquired in 2019. Belkind and Livni have been at Verify Level, the place they designed community cybersecurity instruments, previous to becoming a member of Torq.
The trio labored collectively at Symantec till round December 2019, once they left to pursue Torq.
Torq’s platform as we speak lets IT groups create automated safety workflows that combine with their firm’s current infrastructure. Torq gives a service that employs AI — particularly massive language fashions alongside the strains of OpenAI’s ChatGPT — to reply questions on SOC playbooks, the guides that assist cybersecurity analysts navigate incidents.
“By connecting to the security infrastructure stack, Torq empowers organizations to remediate security events and orchestrate security processes at scale,” Smadari stated. “We aim to augment human security analysts with AI-driven capabilities, allowing them to focus on higher tiers of investigation while leaving more repetitive triage, investigation and response activities to AI.”
One would hope Torq’s AI doesn’t hallucinate usually, or introduce biases that find yourself negatively influencing a safety resolution. The place it issues safety, incorrect selections will be far-reaching and ruinous.
Requested concerning the challenges with AI as we speak as they relate to safety, Smadari admitted that Torq’s automation isn’t good. However he stated the corporate’s working to handle issues as they crop up.
“We are collaborating with a number of companies in the space and building risk and attack surface models, and subjecting our applications to various testing techniques,” Smadari added.
A lot of the brand new money from Torq’s Collection C can be put towards product R&D and buyer acquisition, Smadari stated. Within the subsequent few months, the nearly-200-staffer, Portland-based Torq will beef up its go-to-market groups with a deal with the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
“During the past years, cybersecurity has proven itself to be one of the most resilient industries during conditions of economic uncertainty,” Smadari stated. “Our company growth, and with it, the growth of our expenses, have been tightly coupled from the very beginning to revenue and customer growth.”
Bessemer Enterprise Companions, Notable Capital, Greenfield Companions, and Strait Capital additionally participated in Torq’s Collection C.
