TurkThe “hyper-automation” cybersecurity startup announced today that it has 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 company’s total raised to $120, the new funds will go toward expanding the Torq platform, including artificial intelligence capabilities; international growth; Co-founder and CEO Ofer Smadari says the company is working to increase Torq’s sales channel presence.
“Making enterprise security an enabler and not a barrier to digital innovation is the biggest challenge facing everyone in the industry,” Smadari told TechCrunch in an email interview. “Torq’s approach to a hyper-automation platform works across multiple pillars of the organizational cybersecurity platform, making the organization more agile.”
Smdari co-founded Portland, Oregon-based Torq alongside Ofer Smdari, Leonid Belkind, and Eldad Livni in 2020. Smdari previously co-launched Luminate, a Zero trust The platform was acquired by Symantec in 2019, and she spent several years in executive roles at cybersecurity startups Adollom and FireLayers. Belkind and Livni worked at Check Point, where they built and shipped network security products, before joining Torq.
So, you’re probably wondering – as this writer was frankly – what it is Hyper-automation? As far as I can tell, hyperautomation refers to automation across every process and tool in an organization – not just individual parts or pieces of processes and tools.
To this 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 (LLMs) similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT — to analyze, “understand” and answer questions about SOC operating rules, which are step-by-step guides in an organization that help with security. Analysts navigate security incidents.
There is a lot of enthusiasm for AI and automation among organizations, especially in relation to security. Recently, both Google and Microsoft launched GenAI tools aimed at summarizing and understanding threat intelligence, while startups like Nexusflow are building AI-powered conversational interfaces for security tools.
So what’s so special about Torq? Smadari claims to be adopting cutting-edge models.
“The rapid adoption of the recently announced new generations of…leading LLM degree holders such as [OpenAI’s] GPT-4 and [Google’s] He added that Gemini has enabled Torq’s AI services to take a huge leap in terms of performance. “The latest innovation in fundamental LLM optimization allows Torq to perform meaningful analysis of larger volumes of security signals while keeping the ‘investigation cost’ under strict control.”
Now, allowing third-party models to analyze sensitive security data may set off alarm bells in some organizations — especially those in highly regulated industries. Motivated by related concerns, some companies have gone so far as to ban GenAI tools like ChatGPT on their premises.
However, Smadari emphasizes that Torq gives customers the ability to choose which parts of their data are accessible through the Torq platform and where that data is stored — for example, in Torq-managed storage or in company-owned and managed storage.
“Our privacy and data architecture, as well as usage and security policies, are very strict,” he said.
It’s clearly a sales pitch that resonates. Turk had no problem attracting customers.
According to Smadari, revenue for Torq, which makes money by charging an annual subscription, increased 300% in 2023 thanks to a 500% growth in its customer base. Today, Torq has about 100 enterprise customers, including big-name brands like Blackstone, Chipotle, Rivian, Lemonade, and Fiverr.
Torq’s expansion is even more impressive given the depressing state of cybersecurity funding. According to Crunchbase data, investors are pouring 50% less money into cybersecurity startups than in 2022, and cybersecurity funding has reached its lowest level in five years.
“Since its inception, Türk has achieved responsible growth as one of its main cultural pillars,” Semdari said. “We exercised tight control over our investments, and the very close alignment of these investments with income sources allowed us to avoid the traditional pitfall that many other companies fall into – excessive growth during times of ‘noise’.”
It probably helps that interest in security automation remains high.
By 2023 vote From security analytics firm Devo, 80% of security leaders expect an increase in cybersecurity automation in the next year – citing the potential to improve incident analysis, detect and respond to threats faster, and perform more comprehensive, large-scale analyzes of applications and data sources.
“Seeing where the organization is at any given moment in its transformation from legacy, manual-process-focused approaches to modern, engineering-focused hyper-automation – as well as consulting and guidance on setting the right goals and KPIs for the ‘journey’” – is where Turk meets “Torq provides targeted strategies that are closely aligned with the business objectives of the company in question,” said Semdari.
To stay ahead of competitors like Fortinet, Tines, and Swimlane, Torq recently rolled out a partner program for managed detection and response providers and a separate partner program, the Torq Partner Acceleration Program, for general resellers.
After hiring several executive teams at the end of 2023, including a Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Global Channels and Alliances, Torq intends to grow its workforce of 150 employees by 30% by the end of 2024. This is in addition to a 25% increase in headcount from early Last year so far – a solid expansion for sure.