Congratulations BitSight on raising a $40 million Series C financing. The entire GGV Capital team is excited to have led the round, and I’m delighted to have joined the BitSight board. As part of our extensive work in cybersecurity, where we now have portfolio companies such as AlienVault, Synack, HashiCorp and BitSight, the security ratings space is one we’ve been tracking for several months. Crystal Huang, VP at GGV, spearheaded our work in this area, speaking to over twenty CISOs, security executives and cyber-insurance stakeholders. BitSight is clearly viewed as the leader in this emerging category with a large, happy and growing customer base, and we’re very optimistic for BitSight’s future. Principal among the many elements driving our enthusiasm are the team, the market and the business model.
Team. BitSight possesses an amazing blend of experience, operating capability and technical excellence. CEO Shaun McConnon has previously built over $1 billion in shareholder value through his leadership of companies such as Q1 Labs (acquired by IBM) and Okena (acquired by Cisco). Co-founders Stephen Boyer, CTO, and Nagarjuna Venna, CPO, both hail from MIT and are widely recognized as cybersecurity visionaries. Additionally, folks such as Tom Turner, COO & President, and Dave Fachetti, SVP Partnerships, round out the executive team with a tremendous amount of operating experience. This is a team that can run a very sizable company and they’re putting the pieces in place for BitSight to continue its torrid growth.
Market. BitSight has pioneered the security ratings market, which has grown from the convergence of several trends. Exposure to cybersecurity risks has never been more severe, and companies, whether large, mid-market or SMB, recognize the need to better understand and monitor their security posture. As we’ve learned during our myriad conversations with security professionals, vendors and service providers with access to a company’s network pose meaningful risk and must be closely monitored. With security spend and the proliferation of new vendors continuing to accelerate, security buyers are eager to benchmark their own performance and gauge ROI on their investments. Additionally, cyber-insurance is a rapidly growing market, and providers are hungry for a more quantitative and objective approach to underwriting policies. At the center of these trends, BitSight’s security ratings are rapidly becoming an industry standard, playing a crucial role to assist with vendor risk management, internal benchmarking and insurance carriers’ assessment of cyber risk. As a result, many thought-leading CISOs plan to increase their use of BitSight Security Ratings going forward.
Business Model. BitSight Security Ratings are rapidly becoming a recognized industry standard, with over 450 customers total, including 3 of the top 5 investment banks and 7 of the top 10 cyber insurers as customers. As large companies rate the security of their many vendors and service providers, these players in turn are increasingly working with BitSight to benchmark their own security ratings so they can improve. Already with 60 of the Fortune 500 as customers, BitSight’s ratings are spreading and the company is benefiting from the network effects as seen previously with industry standard scores such as FICO and credit scores.
We look forward to working more closely with the BitSight team. The company has a huge vision and is playing an important role in the fight against cyber criminals. We’re excited for BitSight’s future!