Cybersecurity is more important than ever. These leaders have stepped up to the challenge.

Welcome to Flight School, the first edition of Insight Partners' LinkedIn newsletter. On the first Monday of every month, we’ll highlight the insights, data, and stories you need to scale up and take off.

We’re excited to kick off this new series by discussing a vertical taking center stage this week at RSA: cybersecurity. 

Advancements in AI have made it easier for attackers to execute more sophisticated, targeted, and damaging attacks. And with the dawn of generative AI, the number of these attacks is only increasing.

As Managing Director Stephen Ward pointed out in our 2024 investor predictions:

With hackers becoming smarter than ever and now equipped with AI, a central question remains: What does it take to build an effective cybersecurity company in the face of these challenges? 

Wiz , Dazz , Pentera , and Keyfactor each have paved their own unique journeys within the cybersecurity industry reliant on constant innovation, flexibility, and creativity.

Wiz cofounders turned a longstanding friendship into a revolutionary cybersecurity company

"They’ve accomplished much more than what they said they would and what we expected them to do. They broke the mold," says Managing Director Teddie Wardi

The decision to give up comfortable jobs in a large company like Microsoft is a tricky choice at any time, but the stakes felt even higher for Wiz cofounders Ami Luttwak , Assaf Rappaport , Yinon Costica ( Yinon C. ), and Roy Reznik ( Roy R. ) “When you start a company, it’s quite a frightening experience because no one likes to fail,” Luttwak says. “But of course, the second time, there are higher expectations.”

The founders knew that people would be comparing the trajectory of their new company to the success of their previous company Adallom — and anything other than enormous growth would be seen as a disappointment.

But they didn’t let high expectations dissuade them from their big idea.  

While at Microsoft, they identified a hole in the cloud security market: Unlike with on-premise cybersecurity, there wasn’t a way for security teams to view all their cloud servers in a “single pane of glass.” 

“The market existed for 15 years,” says Luttwak. “Although you had multiple products, none of them actually solved the problem. That happens sometimes: you have products, you have a market, security teams buy the product. But they don’t actually solve the problem. And that’s where opportunity arises.”

“You have products, you have a market. Security teams buy the product. But they don’t actually solve the problem. And that’s where opportunity arises,” says Luttwak.

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Merav Bahat is solving the ignored half of the cyber problem at Dazz

“We want other female founders to look at her and go, ‘Okay, not only is it possible, but it’s possible in cyber,'" says Managing Director Stephen Ward

Launched out of stealth in January 2021, Dazz does security differently. “Security was always about, ‘We’re scanning stuff, and we’ll let you know what’s wrong,’” says Merav Bahat . But that only ever answers half the question. What do you do when you know something is wrong? How do you fix it?

Security companies often shy away from the latter part because it’s the most difficult. Only 10% of issues identified every month are remediated. And the longer they’re left to linger, the worse things get. “Developers are building stuff then deploying it with misconfigurations. Security collects all these issues from production, this backlog of issues,” she says. “It grows to millions of issues. And the problem is security sees the backlog and the risk window that is growing, but cannot do much about it.” Traditional security companies build products that identify those risk windows but don’t solve them. 

“Developers are building stuff then deploying it with misconfigurations. Security collects all these issues from production, this backlog of issues,” says Bahat.

Dazz tackles security issues head-on. The problem is complex: a mix of development, engineering, and security, requiring input from three disparate teams that don’t often work together. And the team, which Bahat has led through multiple offices, and from 15 people to nearly 100 and still growing, helps solve the problem.

“We don’t compromise,” says Bahat. “We have the best team across all functions and a culture we’re really proud of that attracts people with similar values.” Dazz has 30 people in its U.S. office and has big plans. “We want to become a unicorn shortly,” she says.

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CEO Amitai Ratzon’s results-oriented attitude is forging Pentera’s cybersecurity success

“These guys have never missed a forecast, hitting each goal, quarter on quarter, like clockwork,” says Managing Director Thomas Krane

Discipline and teamwork are strong values at play within Pentera . 

“We lead from the front and level with our people about the challenges we face. We also focus on internal training and promotions from within,” Amitai Ratzon says. 

Staff are allocated stock options in Pentera when they join. “You get more as you continue to meet our expectations in the company,” Ratzon continues. “We really invest in our people.” 

“We never make excuses; we find solutions,” says Ratzon.

As a result, staff attrition is extremely low, with many team members building long-term careers at the fast-growth company. 

Ratzon may be the CEO, but he is in constant contact with frontline sales. “I’ve been traveling for the last two months,” he says. “I’ve gone from Spain to Houston, Brazil to the U.K.” Spending time with the sales team as they work on increasing Pentera’s international footprint has been invaluable, he reveals. “I’m in the field with our people. I hear direct feedback on our product. I know about any blind spots before they become an issue.”

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First-time CEO Jordan Rackie is taking Keyfactor to the next level

“We believed in him, and we really just could not be more thrilled with the results," says Managing Director Thomas Krane

Keyfactor had an amazing team, an amazing product, and amazing intellectual property. But it needed what Krane calls “a true scale-up four-star general with go-to-market chops,” which is where Jordan Rackie came in.

At the time, Rackie was looking for a new challenge, having ascended as high as seemed likely within Tricentis. So Krane went to work leveraging his connection with Rackie to make that match: Keyfactor needed a new CEO who could lead the company into a new era of hypergrowth. A perfect candidate wanted to try something new. “We married the two,” says Krane.

Keyfactor needed a new CEO who could lead the company into a new era of hypergrowth

The move also fit Insight Partners’ ethos perfectly, says Krane. “It’s part of our own internal cultural DNA to promote from within and create just-in-time opportunities for individuals to really take that next step in their career. Jordan had proven himself to be able to drive revenue and sales and go-to-market leadership in a very consistent way.”

The match worked. “It was a little bit of serendipity that both opportunities came about at a similar time.” There was a risk involved: Rackie had not been the CEO of a company before, which involved taking a gamble on his ability to step up. But it was a calculated risk, born from years of interactions with him. “Our team in general, just had the utmost respect for him and truly the belief that he could do it,” says Krane. “We believed in him, and we really just could not be more thrilled with the results.”

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🔎 How do you think cybersecurity companies will evolve in the coming years? Let us know in the comments. 

We’ll be at RSA Conference this week, and we’re excited to continue this conversation with you IRL and online.

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