Happy Monday, Boston!
While you may be sipping your first coffee of the week and reminiscing about Sunday brunch, the local tech scene has decided to start the week off with a bang: ZeroNorth, a developer of risk-management software, announced the launch of its product today, in addition to $10 million in Series A funds.
First, the funding: ClearSky Ventures led the round, with participation also coming from Crosslink Capital, Rally Ventures and existing partner Petrillo Capital. The company has raised $18.6 million in funding to date, and plans to utilize the latest round to fuel the continued development of its new software platform.
“The funding will enable ZeroNorth to accelerate its newly extended focus on risk management by strengthening research and development, as well as investing in sales, marketing and services to meet growing demand for our platform,” said CEO Ernesto DiGiambattista. “We also plan to nearly double the employee headcount by the end of the year.”
Now, for ZeroNorth’s mission: Organizations ranging from the University of Massachusetts to Zerto use ZeroNorth to proactively monitor and understand risks posed to their software and digital infrastructures.
These types of monitoring tools are common, if not essential, for any business.
“Software is now so omni-present and it powers everything from our phones and laptops to the cars we drive,” explained DiGiambattista. “All this software needs to be continuously updated, but every new line of code that’s deployed means a potential new security flaw that attackers could exploit.”
Yet, security tools are typically reserved for a single phase of a project: development, deployment and operation. ZeroNorth is building a product capable of continuously monitoring for threats at all stages of a project’s life.
“ZeroNorth transforms these manual and siloed efforts into an orchestrated, comprehensive and real-time discovery and remediation process, allowing security teams to more effectively reduce organizational risk,” DiGiambattista said.
In addition to the funding news, ZeroNorth has recently welcomed several high-profile experts to its team. The company recently brought in John Steven as its newest CTO, and Alan Deane as vice president of worldwide sales. Steven brings with him more than twenty years of cybersecurity experience, with a particular expertise in threat modeling. Deane, meanwhile is an equally seasoned salesperson with two decades of global sales experience under his belt.
ZeroNorth, currently located in Boston’s North End, hopes to grow alongside the local tech community.
“Boston has phenomenal tech talent, especially in the cybersecurity space,” said DiGiambattista. “And it’s not just about talent — there’s also great access to venture capital, and an amazing support system of peers in the industry. There’s no place we’d rather be.”
As the talent gap in cybersecurity grows ever wider, tools like ZeroNorth will become essential for companies looking to protect themselves and their clients.
