Rain Capital Insights - April 2024
We are one week away from the annual RSA Conference. We would like to share a few updates with the community before the conference excitement takes over the Cybersecurity industry and San Francisco.
Rain Capital at RSA
As per usual, Rain Capital will have a significant presence at the RSA conference. Here are some of the highlights:
Dr. Chenxi Wang is the opening keynote for the BSides SF conference on Saturday May 4th, right before RSA. For 15 years, BSides events offer a community-driven, grass-root alternative to the traditional, larger security conferences. BSides SF will feature a diverse range of technical talks, workshops, and networking opportunities. Dr. Wang will speak about AI innovation opportunities in cybersecurity.
On the first day of RSA, Dr. Chenxi Wang is on the opening panel of the conference: “The State of Venture Capital in Cybersecurity ”. Last year at RSA, this panel opened the conference to a standing-room only audience. All the panelists are back for a repeat appearance this year. Dr. Wang will be bantering with Dave DeWalt from Nightdragon, Mark Hatfiled from Ten Eleven Ventures, Yoav Letitersdorf from YL Ventures, and Nadav Zafrir from Team8, at 8:30am on May 6th, at Moscone South - RSAC Sandbox Theater - 208.
Right after the opening panel, David B. Cross will be speaking on the “CISOs under indictment” panel at 9:40am on Monday May 6th, with Joe Sullivan (former CISO of Uber), Charles Blauner (former Citigroup CISO), and Gadi Evron (former Team8 CISO in residence). The panel will debate the evolving CISO role, personal risks to CISOs, and shifts in the industry and the regulatory landscape. This session will happen at 9:40am, May 6th, at Moscone West - 2001.
Simbian Emerges from Stealth
Our latest investment, Simbian, announced its launch on April 11, 2024. Simbian focuses on revolutionizing cybersecurity through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by providing fully autonomous security solutions for cyber defense.
The Simbian team brings together decades of Cybersecurity and AI experiences to create tailored autonomous task execution and workflows to empower security teams.
Simbian’s flagship product is the TrustedLLM™ system, which is designed to accelerate security. Their system empowers every member of a security team, from C-Suite executives to frontline practitioners. It allows them to craft customized insights and workflows, covering a wide range of security tasks such as complex investigations, incident response, governance, and reporting.
Claroty Eyeing A Possible 2025 IPO
One of Rain Capital’s portfolio companies, Claroty, is rumored to be eyeing a 2025 IPO, following a recent $100M late-stage capital raise that put the company at $2.5 billion valuation.
Claroty operates in the field of cyber protection for cyber-physical enterprises and critical infrastructures. Their customers include who-is-who in manufacturing, oil & gas, healthcare, and high tech. The company crossed an impressive $100M ARR and its customer count has grown 300% in the last year. If Claroty maintains its current growth rate, it could reach IPO-level milestones in 2025.
Even though the company has not determined a specific timeline toward IPO, it is exciting to see Claroty’s continued growth and expansion in the market. At RSA, Claroty will be running The Claroty Beats Hub on Wednesday May 7th, at the B Restaurant located at 720 Howard St, San Francisco (Directly across and above the Moscone Center in Yerba Buena Gardens, connected by a skybridge)
How Women Lead with AI
Dr. Chenxi Wang recently spoke on a How Women Lead webinar to discuss how AI is impacting everyday lives. The webinar discussed how soon we will move from task specific AI with a limited scope to AI with agency. How do people prepare? How are the most creative and cutting edge founders and investors harnessing this potential?
The conversation centered around an innovation, business-building perspective, but it also touched upon how individuals can prepare for the groundswell shift brought on by AI and how business leaders can carve their own path to leverage the opportunities.
Latest Podcast Recommendation
Based on popular response from last month’s kickoff, we have a new recommendation for this edition, and it is very timely with the upcoming RSA conference talks about upcoming risks and threats from China.
Kara Swisher had a great interview with Dimitri Alperovitch, co-founder and former CTO of CrowdStrike and author of the new book World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century, and Chris Krebs, Chief Intelligence Officer at SentinelOne and former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on the upcoming cybersecurity and other threats emerging from China.
Dmitri and Chris discuss a number of the threats, signals and indicators that many organizations must drive to prepare against this potential catastrophic outcome. It is completely aligned with the US Department of Defense's 2023 cybersecurity strategy highlights that China likely intends to launch destructive cyber attacks against the U.S. Homeland during conflict, hindering military mobilization and causing chaos that many organizations need to prepare for and need numerous tools and cyber defenses in advance of November 13, 2028.
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