Cybersecurity Builders

Joni Klippert⁠ didn't come from security. She came from DevOps — two companies, including VictorOps, which she joined as the first non-engineering hire and helped bring to market. At conferences like DevOps Days Enterprise, she kept running into the same frustrated security teams: they knew they couldn't keep up with the pace of software delivery, but their only move was to act as a gate....

Mehul⁠ spent over 20 years building cybersecurity products, including early time at Tenable where he watched the company scale from a scrappy startup to a billion-dollar platform. Now he's co-founding ⁠Quantro Security⁠ , which just came out of stealth with an AI agent platform built specifically for cyber defense. The core thesis: AI has reduced the cost of building attacks to near zero, and...

Identity fraud spiked 148% in 2025 as AI democratized identity fabrication. Financial institutions now face a fundamental question: Are you dealing with a real human? Heka Global is addressing this with web intelligence—analyzing digital footprints like connected applications rather than traditional signals. In this episode of BUILDERS, I sat down with Idan Bar-Dov⁠ , Co-Founder & CEO of ⁠Heka...

Portnox⁠ is an enterprise access control platform that eliminates passwords and enforces zero trust security. The company was bootstrapped for over a decade, plateauing at a few million in ARR before investors brought in ⁠Denny LeCompte⁠ as CEO four years ago. Since then, Portnox has grown 8x. But this episode isn't about that growth story. Denny, a former cognitive scientist and professor who...

Sophos⁠ represents one of cybersecurity's most vulnerable companies, founded in 1985 as an antivirus provider and now operating at massive scale with $1.5 billion in ARR and 5,700 global employees. Under CEO Joe Levy's leadership, the company has undergone a fundamental transformation from a traditional product-focused vendor to a services-driven platform that addresses core market failure...

Wultra⁠ provides post-quantum authentication for banks, fintechs, and governments—protecting digital identities from emerging quantum computing threats. In this episode, ⁠Peter Dvorak⁠ shares how he broke into the notoriously closed banking ecosystem by leveraging his early experience in mobile banking development. From navigating multi-stakeholder enterprise sales to positioning quantum-safe cryp...

In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with ⁠Mike Janke⁠ , Co-founder of ⁠Data Tribe⁠ , a venture capital firm driving change through a whole new approach to investing, about how a hyper-targeted and hands-on approach has helped them achieve a 96% success rate when it comes to guiding their partners to transformative market change and, ultimately, commercial viability. By careful...

BlueRock  is building an agentic security fabric to protect organizations deploying AI agents and MCP workflows. With a $25 Million Series A, founder  Bob Tinker  is tackling what he sees as a 10x larger opportunity than mobile's enterprise disruption. Bob previously scaled MobileIron from zero to $150 million in five years and took it public in 2014. In this episode of Category Visionaries, B...

Nightfall AI is pioneering AI-native data loss prevention (DLP) for enterprises navigating cloud, SaaS, and AI application proliferation. Founded in 2017 by former Uber engineers who witnessed data breaches firsthand, Nightfall addresses the architectural limitations and false positive problems plaguing legacy DLP solutions. By leveraging machine learning and large language models across three dis...

In this episode of The Marketing Front Lines, we speak with  Carole Winqwist , CMO of  GitGuardian , a cybersecurity company specializing in secret detection and code vulnerabilities. Carole shares how her team approaches rapid response marketing during major security breaches, the evolution from traditional SEO to answer engine optimization (AEO), and how AI is fundamentally reshaping marketing t...

With over 30 years in wireless—from helping pioneer intercarrier SMS to running mobile identity operations across Americas and Asia Pacific —  Eddie DeCurtis  saw what others missed: 967 of 1,000 global mobile network operators lack the infrastructure to monetize CPNI data while protecting customers from fraud. The technical challenge isn't building APIs. It's that operators spent billions...

StrongestLayer is building AI-native email security architecture designed for threats that defeat pattern-matching systems. The company pivoted from security awareness training after early customers discovered its phishing detection plugin caught advanced threats that legacy gateway solutions missed. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, we sat down with  Alan LeFort , CEO of  StrongestLaye...

Tony Scott  brings an unparalleled perspective to cybersecurity leadership, having served as CIO of the federal government, VMware, Microsoft, General Motors, and Disney before taking the helm at  Intrusion  during a critical turnaround phase. When Scott joined Intrusion three and a half years ago, the company was in crisis—running out of money, facing SEC investigations, and dealing with sharehol...

Staris AI is pioneering a new approach to application security, moving beyond traditional vulnerability scanning to create what they call "total context security." With $5.7 million in funding, the company is building an AI-powered platform that doesn't just find security issues but provides complete context about business risk and automated fixes. In this episode of Category Visiona...

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with  Itzik Alvas , CEO & Co-Founder of  Entro Security , a non-human identity management platform that has raised $24 Million in funding. Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: Military Experience...

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with  Mykolas Rambus , CEO & Co-Founder of  Hush , a cybersecurity company that's raised $7.5 Million in funding. Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: Navigating the .com Bubble:  Mykolas shar...

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with  Umaimah Khan , CEO & Co-Founder at  Opal Security , a data-centric identity security platform that has raised $32 Million in funding.   Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: Background and St...

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with  Ori Eisen , CEO & Founder of  Trusona , an account takeover prevention platform that has raised $38 Million in funding. Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: Persistence Pays Off : Ori's...

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with  Nadav Arbel , CEO & Co-Founder of  Cyrebro , an ML-backed MDR platform that has raised $51 Million in funding. Here are the most interesting points from our conversation Vision for Cyrebro : Nadav discusses how Cy...

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with  Neil Serebryany , CEO & Co-Founder of  Calypso AI , an AI security platform that has raised over $38 Million in funding.  Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: Origins in Intelligence and AI:...

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with  Ian Amit , CEO & Founder at  Gomboc , a cloud security remediation platform that has raised over $5 Million in funding. Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: Origins of Gomboc Name:  Ian shar...

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with  Matteo Bogana , CEO & Co-Founder at  Cleafy , an online fraud prevention platform that has raised $12 Million in funding. Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: Origins of Cleafy:  Matteo was...

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with  Edward Wu , CEO & Founder of  Dropzone AI , a next-generation cybersecurity platform that has raised over $20 Million in funding. Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: AI-Powered Security Ana...

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from the tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with  David Etue , CEO of  Nisos , a managed intelligence platform that has raised $33 Million in funding. Nisos operates at the intersection of cybersecurity and intelligence services, focusing on providing actionable...

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with  Arie Zilberstein , CEO and Co-Founder of  Gem Security , a cloud detection and response platform that has raised $34 Million in funding. Here are the most interesting points from our conversation: Facing Skepticism an...