In the past few decades, Israel has established itself as a world-class innovation hub and was branded the "Startup Nation".
A report shared earlier this year by IVC Research Center reveals that Israel has 436 active cybersecurity firms. According to this report, the value of Israeli cybersecurity startup exits totaled $11.3 billion in 2013-2019. During those six years, Israeli cybersecurity firms raised $6.32 billion from investors in 594 deals.
It's clear, that Israel excels at developing cutting-edge, innovative solutions, and, beginning in 2014, DWCC has worked with some of the most exciting and successful ones. CyberX, recently acquired by Microsoft, joins a long list of success stories including ForeScout, one of the leaders in network security, and Twistlock, who revolutionised the container security space and are now part of Palo Alto Networks.
CyberX, one of the most exciting IoT security companies on the market, comes to prove, yet again, that Israel produces cybersecurity solutions that are worthy of acquisition. Its ground-braking solution to secure IoT and OT fills a vital gap within Microsoft’s security strategy, that previously left many companies unknowingly vulnerable to adversaries that bypassed their traditional security controls.
With this move, like many large organisations, Microsoft is focusing on developing an acquisition strategy. In fact, Hunters.ai, one of the latest clients of DWCC, has also been spotted by Microsoft. Hunters.ai is one of the few threat hunting solutions that focuses on data and leverages the power of machine learning. This approach gives security teams the means to hunt down attackers that sit quietly in companies’ networks looking to spot an opportunity to take advantage.
You might ask 'what is Microsoft’s game plan'? From my experience, and reading through their 2019 annual report, it becomes apparent that there is a neat strategy behind Microsoft’s investments.
Over the last few years Microsoft has invested tremendous amounts of money in building their Azure cloud infrastructure, and with good results; today 95% of the Fortune 500 are using Azure in some format to underpin their core business processes.
Microsoft’s focus is on building intelligent cloud and business services that can provide a foundation for companies who are heavily pushing cloud and digitisation strategies. But for all of this transformation to work, it is essential to have an equally robust Cybersecurity strategy.
Microsoft is making a smart move by acquiring companies like CyberX and investing in innovative startups like Hunters.ai. These solutions give Microsoft a unified offering for many business requirements, be it growth, security or compliance. Microsoft looks after the backend of the digital requirements while businesses can focus on adding their own unique core competencies.
While some are dismissive of Microsoft and other tech giants pursuing acquisition strategies rather than nourishing innovation themselves, this has become a well-trodden path within the tech industry and can pay healthy dividends for both parties. Knowing the rules helps everybody to play the game properly with no hard feelings.
DWCC has played this game for many years now. We know what it takes to grow into new markets and industries sustainably. Our broad range of industry expertise and international presence gives our clients the competitive advantage to outperform those that can’t scale quickly enough.
We’re delighted to see both the CyberX and Hunters.ai teams succeed and are looking forward to witnessing many more successes with our customers.