TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Grip Security, a startup revolutionizing SaaS security, today announced $6 million in seed funding led by YL Ventures with participation from CrowdStrike CEO and Co-founder, George Kurtz and seasoned cybersecurity executives. Founded by security veterans Lior Yaari (CEO), Idan Fast (CTO) and Alon Shenkler (VP R&D), Grip Security is offering the industry’s most comprehensive SaaS security solution, enabling organizations to discover and secure all SaaS applications with no exceptions, from any device and any location.
Joining this seed round are Andy Ellis, former CSO of Akamai; Michael Sutton, former CISO of Zscaler; Sounil Yu, former Chief Security Scientist at Bank of America; Omkhar Arasaratnam, former executive director, Data Protection Engineering at JPMorgan Chase; Sameer Sait, CISO at Amazon (Whole Foods); Adi Sharabani, former SVP & GM, Endpoint Solutions at Symantec; and additional industry leaders.
The adoption of SaaS applications has increased massively in recent years, with an average of almost 300 unique SaaS applications in use per enterprise in 20201. The global pandemic and widespread WFH policies have dramatically increased enterprise dependence on SaaS. While the usage of SaaS applications by organizations continues to soar, there has been little innovation in SaaS security solutions and that has failed to inspire confidence with security teams. In 2019, 68% of organizations reported they are mostly or all SaaS-driven while more than half of enterprises cite security as the top concern2. Existing solutions, such as CASBs and other SaaS Security tools, have tried to address pieces of the problem, but have failed their basic objective: visibility and control across the full spectrum of all SaaS applications, users and devices. These solutions protect only a portion of the hundreds of SaaS applications in use in most organizations, leaving them blind to the rest.
“As companies add more SaaS applications to their portfolio, CASBs cannot scale and effectively leave enterprises with yesterday’s technology,” said Omkhar Arasaratnam, former executive director, Data Protection Engineering at JPMorgan Chase. “Grip Security’s innovative solution is going to reimagine SaaS security,” he said.
Armed with a deep understanding of the problems enterprises face securing SaaS today, Grip Security’s founders have created a novel approach to SaaS security, providing organizations with full visibility into their entire SaaS portfolio, known and unknown, and enforceable endpoint-centric access and data governance capabilities regardless of device or location.
“Current SaaS solutions cover a fraction of applications, or only monitor connections originating from the corporate network and are cumbersome to deploy,” said Lior Yaari, Grip Security’s CEO and co-founder. “Our platform helps organizations get a grip on their SaaS security by cost-effectively providing them with the most comprehensive SaaS coverage and governance with zero touch.”
The Grip Security platform’s key capabilities include:
- Comprehensive SaaS application coverage and user manifest
- Historical visibility into SaaS application usage
- Insight into risk levels posed by SaaS applications
- Deep cross-organizational analysis of applications, users and activity
- Applying security policies across any application or device
- Protection against sensitive data flows out of your enterprise SaaS
“The founding team at Grip Security brings deep technical acumen to disrupt the SaaS security market,” said Ofer Schreiber, partner at YL Ventures. “Grip will not only upend antiquated SaaS security solutions, but they’ll also help enterprises implement much needed automated and granular security for SaaS, the fastest growing segment in information technology.”
About Grip Security
Grip Security, the pioneer in SaaS security, brings the industry’s most comprehensive visibility across an enterprise’s entire SaaS portfolio – known or unknown for SaaS applications, users, and their interactions – with extreme accuracy and deployment in minutes. Armed with deep visibility, Grip’s enforceable endpoint-centric approach secures all SaaS application access regardless of device or location as well as maps data flows to apply security policies – including data loss prevention. Grip works as a standalone platform or complements any CASB deployment with nominal resourcing and no performance degradation so enterprises can get a grip on their SaaS security. For more information, visit grip.security.
About YL Ventures
YL Ventures funds and supports brilliant Israeli tech entrepreneurs from seed to lead. Based in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, YL Ventures manages over $300 million and specializes in cybersecurity. YL Ventures accelerates the evolution of portfolio companies via strategic advice and U.S.-based operational execution, leveraging a powerful network of Chief Information Security Officers and global industry leaders. The firm's track record includes successful, high-profile portfolio company acquisitions by major corporations including Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, CA and Proofpoint. For more information, visit ylventures.com.
1Blissfully, SaaS Trends 2020 - https://www.blissfully.com/saas-trends/2020-annual-report/
2Blissfully, SaaS Trends 2020 - https://www.blissfully.com/saas-trends/2020-annual-report/
