Application Programming Interfaces (or APIs as they are commonly known) are the foundation of everything we do online. APIs allow two things on the Internet, such as connected devices or phone apps, to communicate with each other.
However, a significant increase in API usage (roughly half of all internet traffic) is putting enterprise data at risk. A common security risk is granting overly permissive API access to third parties. Malicious hackers can leverage APIs to access sensitive company information.
Vorlon, a cybersecurity startup that uses its platform to help businesses protect data from such incidents, says it has raised $15.7 million to improve its technology.
Founded in 2022 by former Palo Alto Networks executives Amir Khayat and Amichai Spivak, Vorlon analyzes network traffic to detect and remediate potential API abuse in real-time.
Kayat said in an interview that the company's technology performs analysis and tells customers “what they need to be notified of and take action on.”
Vorlon continuously monitors companies' APIs and notifies them when vendors make updates, helping them better understand their exposure or potential exposure, Khayat told TechCrunch. Ta. The founder also said that alongside vulnerability and exposure detection, Vorlon's platform also considers what kind of data third-party APIs can access and where it can connect to other applications. .
Vorlon uses AI to analyze, map, and translate all the API communications it monitors into human-readable language. This helps users get an overview of third-party apps. Vorlon also offers an AI chatbot that allows companies to search for information about security threats and issues in natural human language. Khayat said Vorlon does not send chatbot data anywhere. Instead, it sends users' queries to its own database, and the chatbot returns information from the startup's database.
“In many cases, organizations do not learn of a data breach by a vendor until months after the fact,” Accel partner Steve Loughlin said in a statement. “Vorlon's ability to reduce the time from threat detection to remediation to minutes makes this technology so powerful.”
Vorlon counts Hubspot, SafeBreach, and presales engineering platform Vivun among its early customers since launching its platform in February. The company said it expects strong demand from the healthcare and financial sectors and is targeting companies with at least 1,500 employees.
The Delaware-based startup, which has an R&D subsidiary in Tel Aviv, currently has about 22 employees and will use the Series A funding to add staff to its sales and product R&D teams. The plan is to increase the number of employees by hiring more people. accelerator.
The all-equity round included participation from Shield Capital and cybersecurity angel investors. Among them are Demisto co-founders Slavik Markovich, Rishi Bhargava and Dan Sarel, who worked closely with Vorlon co-founders at Demisto before its acquisition by Palo Alto Networks in 2019; Includes Guy Rinat. Former Exabeam CEO Nir Polak and Fox Corporation CTO Paul Cheesborough are also major investors in his Vorlon.