The Business of Stopping Data Breaches: Introducing Open Raven
Yahoo in 2013, Equifax in 2017, Marriott in 2018, Facebook in 2019 — you probably already know what I’m talking about. Data breaches on a massive scale, touching almost everyone. Every year, there are thousands of reported hacks and even more nefarious, the unreported “leaks” that have become business as usual for virtually every company.
Is this because businesses are just risky? Because CISOs (Chief Information Security Officers) are just incompetent? Of course not. While data security has been an area of focus for decades, as we sit here in 2020, it’s simply getting exponentially harder to address.
Gone are the days of closed, on-premise servers and workforce. With the move towards data on public clouds and the workforce of the future powered by mobile devices and remote access, enterprises are experiencing an explosion of data that is exposed in entirely new ways, far outpacing the staffing, expertise, and infrastructure of internal organizations.
Enterprises have to worry about breaches and accidental exposure of not just customer data, but all data including employee and IP. Layer on top of this the new regulatory frameworks in both Europe and Asia, and it is clear the world needs a new way to map, catalog, assess, respond and protect. Businesses need to be able to understand — what data do you own? Where do your assets begin and end? How can you most easily address vulnerabilities in those assets?
This isn’t just a CISO problem -it’s now a CEO Problem
For this reason, I’m thrilled to share that Upfront is leading the seed round in Open Raven.
Open Raven puts enterprise customers back in control of their data, from mapping their systems to managing their data risk across the cloud, across users, and across devices. I like to oversimplify their incredibly complex solution in this way: Open Raven is building the detailed Google Maps of your most critical data, so that you know where all the data is, at all times. And even more importantly, with this master, real-time view, Open Raven helps businesses know when traffic changes, the type of vehicle driving in the lane and can real time put in stop lights, ambulances and police(wo)men to bring your data to safety.
You can’t protect what you can’t see, or what you can’t anticipate. As the team describes it “there’s a quiet epidemic. It’s not Russia, Iran or China. Exposures are the new breach.” And to solve the problem of constant, shifting data exposure requires a team like Open Raven, one that understands both the dynamic nature of the cloud as well as the way it intersects with big, old datasets on premises.
World-Class Team: Built to Get It, Built to Scale
Open Raven is founded by two data and security experts that are uniquely suited to solve this enormous industry need. Dave Cole and Mark Curphy have not only built their entire careers in the space but have held nearly every business and technical role at both industry incumbents (Symantec, McAfee, Microsoft) and in multiple successful start-ups within cybersecurity.
I had the great pleasure of getting to know CEO Dave Cole (who was most recently the CPO of Crowdstrike and then Tenable) over a couple years of dinners, podcasts and conversations about building world class infrastructure companies based in Los Angeles. Dave was consistently described to me as one of the top and most commercial technical product founders in the space and after months of working together in an official capacity, I can tell you that this is true. He comes to the table with the “unfair advantage” we look for at Upfront Ventures- an experienced, ready-made team, customer/channel relationships and industry advocates.
His co-founder Mark Curphy is equally impressive — a founder of OWASP and previously holding prominent roles at Microsoft, McAfee, Charles Schwab and Sourceclear.
Beyond the obvious market opportunity, I was drawn to this team’s commitment to team building, brand building and user experience building from day one. They’re insanely innovative and obsessively focused on execution, from the first customer experience on their website to solving the big difficult problems with the data to building a career-defining culture. It is rare to find a team that has the massive ambition (or properly placed “chip on shoulder”) of founders with something to prove along with the domain expertise and team building skills of industry veterans. This is that company! They have assembled a team and seed stage board that far outpaces most founders at their stage but is commensurate with their ambition and experience, including independent board member Phil Venables, former Chief Risk Officer of Goldman Sachs.
Open Raven officially launches for business this week and I can’t wait to see what this transformative team and business does. Please join me in welcoming them to the world, and to the Upfront portfolio!
