Torq.io, a cybersecurity startup that describes itself as “hyperautomation,” raised $42 million in an extension of its Series B funding round from investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, GGV Capital, Insight Partners, Greenfield Partners and Evolution Equity Partners .
Bringing the total raised by the company to $120, the new capital will go toward expanding Torq's platform, including artificial intelligence capabilities; international growth; and increase Torq's sales channel presence, says co-founder and CEO Ofer Smadari.
“Making enterprise security an enabler and not a blocker of digital innovation is the biggest challenge facing everyone in the industry,” Smadari said. “Torq’s approach to a hyperautomation platform works across multiple pillars of the organizational cybersecurity platform, making the organization more resilient.”
Smadari co-founded Portland, Oregon-based Torq along with Ofer Smadari, Leonid Belkind, and Eldad Livni in 2020. Smadari previously co-launched Luminate, a zero trust acquired by Symantec in 2019 and spent several years in executive roles at cybersecurity startups Adollom and FireLayers. Belkind and Livni were at Check Point, building and creating network security products, before joining Torq.
What is hyperautomation? Hyperautomation refers to the automation of all of an organization's processes and tools, not simply individual parts or pieces of processes and tools.
To that end, Torq enables IT teams to create and deploy security workflows designed to integrate with existing cybersecurity infrastructure. The company offers a service that leverages generative AI, specifically large language models (LLM) similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, to analyze, "understand" and answer questions about SOC manuals, the step-by-step guides in an organization that help to safety. Analysts navigate security incidents.
There is a lot of enthusiasm for AI and automation among companies, especially when it comes to security. Recently, both Google and Microsoft launched GenAI tools aimed at summarizing and making sense of threat intelligence, while startups like Nexusflow are creating AI-powered conversational interfaces for security tools.
So what sets Torq apart from the rest? The adoption of cutting-edge models, says Smadari.
“Rapid adoption of recently announced new generations of LLM leaders such as OpenAI's GPT-4 and Google's Google Gemini enabled Torq's AI services to take a huge leap in terms of performance,” he added. “The latest innovations in core LLM optimization enable Torq to perform meaningful analysis of larger quantities of security signals while keeping the ‘research cost’ under tight control.”
The Torq Security Automation Platform
Allowing third-party models to analyze sensitive security data could raise alarm bells in some organizations, especially those in highly regulated industries. Motivated by related fears, some companies have gone so far as to ban GenAI tools like ChatGPT from their workplaces.
Smadari says, however, that Torq offers customers the ability to choose which parts of their data are accessible to the Torq platform and where that data is stored (for example, on Torq-operated storage or on managed and owned storage). of the company).
“Our privacy and data architecture, as well as our use and protection policies, are very strict,” he said.
It's a sales pitch that's clearly resonating. Torq has had no problems attracting customers.
According to Smadari, Torq, which makes money by charging an annual subscription, has increased its revenue by 300% in 2023 with its customer base growing by 500%. Today, Torq has around 100 enterprise clients, including big-name brands like Blackstone, Chipotle, Rivian, Lemonade, and Fiverr.
Torq's expansion is even more impressive considering the rather dismal state of cybersecurity funding. According to data from Crunchbase, investors are investing 50% less money in cybersecurity startups compared to 2022, and cybersecurity funding has hit its lowest level in five years.
“Since its inception, Torq has had responsible growth as one of its main cultural pillars,” said Smadari. "We have exercised strict control over our investments, and closely aligning them with revenue streams has allowed us to avoid the traditional problem that many other companies have fallen into: excessive growth in times of 'hype'."
It probably helps that interest in security automation remains high.
According to the 2023 cybersecurity survey From security analytics firm Devo, 80% of security leaders predict an increase in cybersecurity automation in the coming year, citing the potential for better incident analysis, faster detection and response to threats and more comprehensive and far-reaching analyzes of applications and data sources.
“Visibility into where the organization is at any given moment in its transformation from old-school approaches focused on manual operations to modern engineering-focused hyperautomation, as well as advice and guidance to set the right goals and KPIs for the ' trip' is where Torq meets with the organization's senior managers,” Smadari said. “Torq offers meaningful strategies that are closely aligned with the business objectives of the respective company.”
To stay ahead of rivals like Fortinet, Tines and Swimlane, Torq recently launched a partner program for managed detection and response providers and a separate partner program, the Torq Partner Acceleration Program, for general resellers.
After making several executive team hires towards the end of 2023, including a chief marketing officer and a director of global channels and alliances, Torq intends to increase its workforce of 150 employees by 30% by the end of 2024. That will be adds up to 25%. increase in staff from the beginning of last year until now: an aggressive expansion, without a doubt.
