Cybersecurity firm Securonix seeks to boost sales and hire in India
After raising $1 billion in a February funding round led by a specialist private equity firm Vista equitycybersecurity company is expanding globally, including in India.
Based in Texas, Austin, Securonix is a next-generation cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product for SIEM (Security Information and Event Management). It has nearly 50% of its global workforce in India, with its Indian customers contributing nearly 25% of its annual revenue.
“Until the middle of last year, we had over 300 employees in India in functions such as engineering, professional services, cloud operations, research, etc.,” said Harshil Doshi, chief operating officer. sales for India and SAARC at Securonix. Your story.
“Currently, we have nearly 500 staff in India spread across Bengaluru and Pune offices, and we continue to hire for more positions in India and post funding globally,” he adds.
Founded in 2008 by second entrepreneurs Sachin Nayyar and Tanuj Gulati, Securonix has been present for back-end operations in India for almost six years. Sachin and Tanuj’s previous venture, enterprise role management and identity compliance company VAAU, was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2007.
As companies generate more and more data, SIEM solutions make it easier for them to manage security by generating security alerts. SIEM players such as Securonix also help customers analyze real-time data for early detection of cybersecurity attacks.
In a recent interview, Sachin said the company has surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and grew its SaaS ARR by 100% in the past year.
Indian market growth
Securonix has launched its Sales in India only in 2019 and current revenue share is a good indicator of growth, says Harshil.
“India’s contribution of nearly 25% to the company’s revenue in FY21 is among the highest of any software company. Typically, India contributes the most 1.5-2% for any company headquartered in the United States,” says Harshil.
He adds that Securonix has worked with almost 22 distribution partners, including managed security service providers (MSSP), system integrators (SI) and distributorsand others to expand its customer base.
“Wipro is one of our largest MSSP and IS partners globally. Other than that, we work with PwC India as strategic MSSP, LTI is global IS, etc. Globally, 50-60% of our business is going through MSSPs or resellers and we want to get to a point where about 80-90% of our business is going through our channel partners, because it’s hard to get the feet in the street for a company of our scale,” says Harshil.
Currently, Securonix’ Indian sales team employs 12 people and plans to increase the number to 15 by the end of the year, Harshil said.
Apart from North America, India, SAARC and Middle East markets contribute significantly to Securonix’s revenue.
According to market research by Brandessence, the The SIEM market size reached $4.21 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $6.62 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 8.1%. The report also states that cloud-based SIEM solutions, which address log management applications including collection, generation, transmission, analysis, storage, disposition, and monitoring, have become important for IT security, governance and regulatory compliance, especially in light of the pandemic.
Main customers in India
While the customer base in India is similar to global trends, there are also geography-specific challenges. The line between business fraud and cybersecurity fraud is blurring, says Harshil.
“We are currently witnessing the NSE fiasco and as a SIEM company, we help companies to be proactive rather than reactive to security threats. If the Securonix platform detects patterns or keywords that do not seem correct or are used as an attachment, or a change in employee behavior, we give organizations predictive intelligence to combat these aspects,” he says.
The Securonix platform is capable of plan an attack within 20 to 30% of its deployment, which could span a few hours to a few weeks depending on the nature of the bad actor.
BFSI continues to be one of the major customers of Securonix globally as well as in India, excluding IT and ITeS companies, digital first enterprises, startups and manufacturing entities.
“BFSI is a low hanging fruit as the risk is very tangible and any financial fraud has an immediate impact on the business. The sector is investing heavily in cybersecurity. pharmaceuticals due to the pandemic,” he said.
Harshil says that personally identifiable information shared and stored by healthcare providers and outsourced to KPOs has resulted in increased expenses. Similarly, the pharmaceutical sector has increased its spending on cybersecurity to protect trials and other sensitive information.
The third sector catching up is government spending on cybersecurity, Harshil says.
“There are geopolitical tensions and nation-state sponsored attacks against countries as well as companies working from these geographies. We see patterns emerging from that,” he adds.
