Deepfactor Company Profile

Background

Deepfactor is a developer security platform that integrates Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), software composition analysis, container scans, and container runtime security into a unified solution. Founded in 2019, the company's mission is to empower engineering teams to identify and remediate security vulnerabilities, supply chain risks, and compliance violations early in the development and testing phases. Deepfactor's vision is to redefine application security by providing continuous observability tailored for cloud-native applications, thereby enabling developers to "start left" and secure applications at the source.

Key Strategic Focus

Deepfactor's strategic focus centers on delivering a next-generation application security platform designed specifically for cloud-native environments. The company's core objectives include:

Comprehensive Security Integration: Combining SBOM, software composition analysis, container scans, and runtime security to offer a holistic security solution.

Developer-Centric Approach: Providing tools that integrate seamlessly into existing development workflows, enabling developers to address security concerns without compromising productivity.

Runtime Observability: Offering unparalleled visibility into running applications by observing live telemetry events across threads, processes, and containers to detect anomalies without requiring code changes.

Prioritization of Vulnerabilities: Utilizing runtime software composition analysis to correlate static scans with runtime analysis, allowing teams to prioritize vulnerabilities based on actual usage and risk.

Financials and Funding

Deepfactor has secured a total of $18.4 million in funding to date. The funding history includes:

Series A Funding: In September 2021, Deepfactor raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Insight Partners, with participation from Emergent Ventures, Security Leadership Capital, and Tricentis.

The capital is intended to further develop Deepfactor's continuous application security observability platform, enhance product functionality in areas such as privacy, compliance, and CI/CD integration, and introduce a SaaS offering to complement the self-hosted version.

Technological Platform and Innovation

Deepfactor's platform stands out due to its innovative technological approach:

Integrated Security Features: The platform combines SBOM generation, software composition analysis, container scanning, and runtime security into a cohesive solution.

Runtime Software Composition Analysis: This proprietary technology allows for the correlation of static scans with runtime analysis, enabling the prioritization of vulnerabilities based on actual application behavior.

Continuous Observability: Deepfactor observes billions of live telemetry events across threads, processes, and containers, providing real-time insights into application behavior without necessitating code modifications.

Seamless Integration: The platform integrates with popular developer tools such as Jira, Jenkins, Slack, GitHub, GitLab, CircleCI, and CloudBees, facilitating easy adoption within existing development workflows.

Leadership Team

Deepfactor's leadership comprises experienced professionals with extensive backgrounds in technology and security:

Kiran Kamity, Founder & CEO: A serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Kiran has a passion for building impactful products. Prior to Deepfactor, he served as Head of Product at Cisco Cloud BU, Founder/CEO at ContainerX (acquired by Cisco), and Founder/VP at RingCube (acquired by Citrix).

Mike Larkin, Founder & CTO: Mike is the author of the OpenBSD Hypervisor VMM and has been a guest faculty member at San Jose State University for 18 years. He was the Founder/CTO at RingCube (acquired by Citrix) and holds numerous patents.

Rizwan Merchant, Vice President of Engineering: A seasoned engineering leader at the intersection of DevOps and security, Rizwan has played key roles at companies like Qualys and FireEye.

Virginia Lux, Head of Marketing: Virginia has extensive marketing experience in cybersecurity startups, particularly in the application security and developer security space. Prior to Deepfactor, she was the Senior Director of Marketing at ZeroNorth.

Carlos Mena, Head of Sales: Carlos is an accomplished sales professional with experience in sales strategy development and execution. He has worked in the software composition analysis space at companies like Sonatype and Palamida/Flexera.

Competitor Profile

Market Insights and Dynamics

The application security market is experiencing significant growth, driven by the increasing adoption of cloud-native architectures and the need for robust security solutions. Companies are releasing software applications faster, with greater complexity, leading to a rise in supply chain, security, and compliance risks.

Competitor Analysis

Key competitors in the application security space include:

Snyk: Focuses on developer-first security, offering tools to find and fix vulnerabilities in open-source dependencies and containers.

Veracode: Provides a comprehensive suite of application security solutions, including static analysis, dynamic analysis, and software composition analysis.

Checkmarx: Offers static and interactive application security testing solutions, emphasizing secure coding practices.

GitLab: Integrates security into the DevOps lifecycle, providing static and dynamic analysis, dependency scanning, and container scanning.

GitGuardian: Specializes in detecting secrets and sensitive data in code repositories to prevent data leaks.

Strategic Collaborations and Partnerships

Deepfactor has established significant partnerships to enhance its platform and market reach:

Synopsys Integration: In May 2022, Deepfactor integrated with Synopsys' Black Duck software composition analysis tool to help developers prioritize and remediate application vulnerabilities and license risks in Kubernetes and cloud-native applications early in development and testing.

Operational Insights

Deepfactor's strategic considerations in relation to major competitors and market position include:

Developer-Centric Design: Unlike some competitors that focus primarily on security teams, Deepfactor emphasizes a developer-first approach, integrating seamlessly into existing development workflows.

Runtime Observability: The platform's ability to provide real-time insights into running applications without code changes offers a distinct advantage over traditional static analysis tools.