As a hub for financial and health technology, two sectors ripe for hackers to steal an individual’s most sensitive information, Georgia has risen to the challenge in the security front as well. Over 115 information security companies generate almost $5 billion in revenue, making the state a top three market in the country. International companies like IBM and Honeywell have set up shop to develop security-focused technologies here, taking advantage of access to university talent and infrastructure already in place from local cybersecurity veterans.
But in an industry where the bad guys — the hackers — are constantly changing up their methods, the cybersecurity industry must be constantly innovating as well. Newcomers with fresh perspectives and new ideas must be welcomed in order for the region to stay on top.
“In cybersecurity and machine learning, a vast majority of innovation is coming from early stage companies. They are more agile, more capable to pivot to meet the growing threats that emerge every day,” says Mark Wasiele, a partner at CyberLaunch, the first and largest accelerator in the southeast specifically geared towards information security and machine learning startups.
The team behind CyberLaunch brings the best new companies in the industry to Atlanta for three months to invest in and develop them. The program is currently in the final stages of their Winter 2017 cohort and looking towards culmination at Demo Day on Wednesday, March 29.
The CyberLaunch program draws on an impressive roster of industry experts — cofounder Chris Klaus formerly founded and served as CTO at cybersecurity unicorn Internet Security Systems (sold to IBM in 2006). Over 100 mentors add to the knowledge base accelerator companies gain access to.
It’s a network that remains in place even after the three months are over. That, along with the other draws of the city (affordability, local talent, industry infrastructure), make a strong case for companies that may not have been founded here to stay and set up shop. It’s the case for current cohort company C3 Security, a SaaS platform that enables immediate threat response through automated investigations.
“CyberLaunch gave me deep access to top cybersecurity experts who understood my security platform and provided critical insights to grow my business, says C3 Security founder Chris Corcoran. “So, I decided to move my headquarters from San Francisco to Atlanta.”
CyberLaunch’s Demo Day will also include a startup showcase with 20 additional companies from all over the country.
“Atlanta has a strong foundation of starting and scaling cybersecurity companies. At CyberLaunch, we attract the best startups nationwide to Atlanta’s ecosystem of security and machine learning experts, investors, customers, and mentors to accelerate growth,” says Klaus.
CyberLaunch Winter cohort companies are:
C3 Security
C3’s Security Orchestration SaaS Platform automates analyst workflows to streamline threat response. C3 Orchestration is a software that extracts the value of other security tools and enables immediate threat response with actionable data for security teams.
iTreatMD is a smart workflow platform which leverages machine learning to generate customized and flexible patient encounter documents. It integrates seamlessly with existing EMRs to eliminate time and costs associated with dictation, transcription, and scribes.
Opel provides autonomous tools for data scientists to make them more productive at delivering machine learning to enterprises. This allows enterprises to augment existing data science teams with autonomous, user-friendly, and efficient tools.
A real-time risk monitoring and threat remediation platform for enterprises seeking to actively block malicious behaviors. Leveraging multiple algorithms, the Aegis platform automatically detects, qualifies, and remediates malicious activity in real-time (e.g. hijacked credentials/sessions, abuse of privileges).
