Startups

Extra Crunch roundup: Security data lakes, China vs. Starlink, ExtraHop’s $900M exit

Comment

Arif Kareem, chief executive officer of Extrahop Networks Inc., speaks during the GeekWire Cloud Summit in Bellevue, Washington, U.S., on Wednesday, June 5, 2019. The event brings together entrepreneurs, executives, and tech leaders to explore the future of innovation. Photographer: David Ryder/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Image Credits: Bloomberg (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

News broke this morning that Bain Capital Private Equity and Crosspoint Capital Partners are purchasing Seattle-based network security startup ExtraHop.

Part of the Network Detection and Response (NDR) market, ExtraHop’s security solutions are for companies that manage assets in the cloud and on-site, “something that could be useful as more companies find themselves in that in-between state,” report Ron Miller and Alex Wilhelm.

Just one year ago, ExtraHop was closing in on $100 million in ARR and was considering an IPO, so Ron and Alex spoke to ExtraHop CTO and co-founder Jesse Rothstein to learn more about how (and why) the deal came together.

Have a great week, and thanks for reading!

Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist


Full Extra Crunch articles are only available to members.
Use discount code ECFriday to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription.


Network security startup ExtraHop skips and jumps to $900M exit

Xometry is taking its excess manufacturing capacity business public

Image Credits: Prasit photo (opens in a new window)/ Getty Images

Xometry, a Maryland-based service that connects companies with manufacturers with excess production capacity around the world, filed an S-1 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week announcing its intent to become a public company.

As the global supply chain tightened during the pandemic in 2020, a company that helped find excess manufacturing capacity was likely in high demand.

But growth aside, it’s clear that Xometry is no modern software business, at least from a revenue-quality profile.

Xometry is taking its excess manufacturing capacity business public

It’s time for security teams to embrace security data lakes

Image of a man jumping from a floating dock into a lake.
Image Credits: Malorny (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

The average corporate security organization spends $18 million annually but is largely ineffective at preventing breaches, IP theft and data loss. Why?

The fragmented approach we’re currently using in the security operations center (SOC) does not work. It’s time to replace the security information and event management (SIEM) approach with security data lakes.

The reduced reliance on the SIEM is well underway, along with many other changes. The SIEM is not going away overnight, but its role is changing rapidly, and it has a new partner in the SOC — the security data lake.

It’s time for security teams to embrace security data lakes

 

China’s drive to compete against Starlink for the future of orbital internet

Image Credits: STR/China News Service (CNS)/AFP (opens in a new window)/ Getty Images

There has been a wave of businesses over the past several years hoping to offer broadband internet delivered from thousands of satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO), providing coverage of most of the earth’s surface.

In tandem with the accelerated deployment of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation in 2020, China has rapidly responded in terms of policy, financing and technology. While still in early development, a “Chinese answer to Starlink,” SatNet, and the associated GuoWang are likely to compete in certain markets with Starlink and others while also fulfilling a strategic purpose from a government perspective.

With considerable backing from very high-level actors, we are likely to see the rollout of a Red Star(link) over China (and the rest of the world) over the coming years.

China’s drive to compete against Starlink for the future of orbital internet

This SPAC is betting that a British healthcare company can shake up the US market

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)

Babylon Health, a British health tech company, is pursuing a U.S. listing via a blank-check company, or SPAC.

While we wait for Robinhood’s IPO, The Exchange dove into its fundraising history, its product, its numbers and, bracing ourselves for impact, its projections.

This SPAC is betting that a British healthcare company can shake up the US market

The hidden benefits of adding a CTO to your board

A CTO brings a strategic advantage
Image Credits: Westend61 / Getty Images

Conventional wisdom says your board should include a few CEOs who can offer informed advice from an entrepreneur’s perspective, but adding a technical leader to the mix creates real upside, according to Abby Kearns, chief technology officer at Puppet.

Beyond their engineering experience, CTOs can help founders set realistic timelines, help identify pain points and bring what Kearns calls “pragmatic empathy” to high-pressure situations.

They can also be an effective advocate for founder teams who need help explaining why a launch is delayed or new engineering hires are badly needed.

“A CTO understands the nuts and bolts,” says Kearns.

The hidden benefits of adding a CTO to your board

6 career options for ex-founders seeking their next adventure

6 options for ex-founders looking for their next venture
Image Credits: Marie LaFauci / Getty Images

As someone with “founder” on your resume, you face a greater challenge when trying to get a traditional salaried job.

You’ve already shown that you really want to lead a company, not just rise up the ladder, which means some employers are less likely to hire you.

So what should you do? Especially if your life partner and/or bank account are burnt out on the income volatility of startups?

Here are six options for ex-founders planning their next move.

6 career options for ex-founders seeking their next adventure

How bottom-up sales helped Expensify blaze the path for SaaS

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman

In the fifth and final part of Expensify’s EC-1, Anna Heim explores how the company built its business, true to form, in an unexpected way.

“You’d expect an expense management company to have a large sales department and advertise through all kinds of channels to maximize customer acquisition, Anna writes. But “Expensify just doesn’t do what you think it should.

“Keeping in mind this company’s propensity to just stick to its guts, it’s not much of a surprise that it got to more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue and millions of users with a staff of 130, some contractors, and an almost non-existent sales team.”

How is that much growth possible without a sales team? Word of mouth.

How bottom-up sales helped Expensify blaze the path for SaaS

More TechCrunch

When generative AI tools started making waves in late 2022 after the launch of ChatGPT, the finance industry was one of the first to recognize these tools’ potential for speeding…

Linq raises $6.6M to use AI to make research easier for financial analysts

In addition to the federal funding, the state of New Mexico — where SolAero is based — committed to providing financing and incentives that value $25.5 million.

Biden administration looks to give Rocket Lab $24M to boost space-grade solar cell production

Some of the new Apple Intelligence features that Apple debuted at WWDC 2024 don’t even feel like AI, they just feel like smarter tools. 

Apple’s AI, Apple Intelligence, is boring and practical — that’s why it works

The TechCrunch team runs down all of the biggest news from the Apple WWDC 2024 keynote in an easy-to-skim digest.

Here’s everything Apple announced at the WWDC 2024 keynote, including Apple Intelligence, Siri makeover

Jordan Meyer and Mathew Dryhurst founded Spawning AI to create tools that help artists exert more control over how their works are used online. Their latest project, called Source.Plus, is…

Spawning wants to build more ethical AI training datasets

After leading the social media landscape, TikTok appears to be interested in challenging Google’s dominance in search. The company confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s testing the ability for users to…

TikTok comes for Google as it quietly rolls out image search capabilities in TikTok Shop

General Motors is investing $850 million into Cruise as the autonomous vehicle subsidiary slowly makes its way back to testing in Phoenix, Dallas and, as of Tuesday, Houston. GM’s CFO…

GM gives Cruise $850M lifeline as it relaunches robotaxis in Houston

These messaging features, announced at WWDC 2024, will have a significant impact on how people communicate every day.

At last, Apple’s Messages app will support RCS and scheduling texts

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at Rippling’s controversial decision to ban some former employees from selling their stock, Carta’s massive valuation drop, a GenZ-focused fintech raise, and…

Rippling’s tender offer decision draws mixed — and strong — reactions

Google is finally making its Gemini Nano AI model available to Pixel 8 and 8a users after teasing it in March.

Google’s June Pixel feature drop brings Gemini Nano AI model to Pixel 8 and 8a users

At WWDC 2024, Apple introduced new options for developers to promote their apps and earn more from them in the App Store.

Apple adds win-back subscription offers and improved search suggestions to the App Store

iOS 18 will be available in the fall as a free software update.

Here are all the devices compatible with iOS 18

The acquisition comes as BeReal was struggling to grow its user base and was looking for a buyer.

BeReal is being acquired by mobile apps and games company Voodoo for €500M

Unlike Light’s older phones, the Light III sports a larger OLED display and an NFC chip to make way for future payment tools, as well as a camera.

Light introduces its latest minimalist phone, now with an OLED screen but still no addictive apps

Since April, a hacker with a history of selling stolen data has claimed a data breach of billions of records — impacting at least 300 million people — from a…

The mystery of an alleged data broker’s data breach

Diversity Spotlight is a feature on Crunchbase that lets companies add tags to their profiles to label themselves.

Crunchbase expands its diversity-tracking feature to Europe

Thanks to Apple’s newfound — and heavy — investment in generative AI tech, the company had loads to showcase on the AI front, from an upgraded Siri to AI-generated emoji.

The top AI features Apple announced at WWDC 2024

A Finnish startup called Flow Computing is making one of the wildest claims ever heard in silicon engineering: by adding its proprietary companion chip, any CPU can instantly double its…

Flow claims it can 100x any CPU’s power with its companion chip and some elbow grease

Five years ago, Day One Ventures had $11 million under management, and Bucher and her team have grown that to just over $450 million.

The VC queen of portfolio PR, Masha Bucher, has raised her largest fund yet: $150M

Particle announced it has partnered with news organization Reuters to collaborate on new business models and experiments in monetization.

AI news reader Particle adds publishing partners and $10.9M in new funding

Mistral AI has closed its much-rumored Series B funding round, raising €600 million (around $640 million) in a mix of equity and debt.

Paris-based AI startup Mistral AI raises $640M

Cognigy is helping create AI that can handle the highly repetitive, rote processes center workers face daily.

Cognigy lands cash to grow its contact center automation business

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved…

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

Featured Article

Raspberry Pi is now a public company

Raspberry Pi priced its IPO on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning at £2.80 per share, valuing it at £542 million, or $690 million at today’s exchange rate.

12 hours ago
Raspberry Pi is now a public company

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. What a week! In the same seven-day period, we watched Boeing’s Starliner launch astronauts to space for the first time, and then we…

TechCrunch Space: A week that will go down in history

Elon Musk’s posts seem to misunderstand the relationship Apple announced with OpenAI at WWDC 2024.

Elon Musk threatens to ban Apple devices from his companies over Apple’s ChatGPT integrations

“We’re looking forward to doing integrations with other models, including Google Gemini, for instance, in the future,” Federighi said during WWDC 2024.

Apple confirms plans to work with Google’s Gemini ‘in the future’

When Urvashi Barooah applied to MBA programs in 2015, she focused her applications around her dream of becoming a venture capitalist. She got rejected from every school, and was told…

How Urvashi Barooah broke into venture after everyone told her she couldn’t

Slack CEO Denise Dresser is speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024.

Slack CEO Denise Dresser is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt this October

Apple kicked off its weeklong Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2024) event today with the customary keynote at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT. The presentation focused on the company’s software offerings…

Watch the Apple Intelligence reveal, and the rest of WWDC 2024 right here