OODA Network Member Randall Fort’s company is amongst the companies pitching in this session from the 2023 RSA Conference (RSAC) a few weeks ago. Watch three selected early-stage startups give a 5-minute pitch to leading security venture capitalists Bob Ackerman, Emily Heath, and Arik Kleinstein to gain advice, interest and maybe help in investment.
#RSAC Launch Pad is about to take flight! 🚀 Come watch three selected early-stage startups give a 5-minute pitch to leading security venture capitalists Bob Ackerman, Emily Heath and Arik Kleinstein to gain advice, interest and maybe help in investment. pic.twitter.com/ZfUtzgkh4G
— RSA Conference (@RSAConference) April 25, 2023
RSA Conference 2023 On Demand access is required to watch this video: RSAC Launch Pad | RSA Conference.
Participants
Hugh Thompson – Moderator
Program Committee Chair, RSA Conference
Robert Ackerman – Panelist
Founder/Managing Director, AllegisCyber, AllegisCyber Capital
Emily Heath – Panelist
General Partner, Cyberstarts
Arik Kleinstein – Panelist
Managing Partner, Glilot Capital Partners
The Launchpad Pitch Companies:
QWERX: https://www.qwerx.co/
Guardrail: https://www.guardrail.ai/
Balance Theory: https://www.balancetheory.io/
RSAC Launch Pad Re-Launches in 2023
Returning after a brief hiatus, RSAC Launch Pad was back with a vengeance this year. A consummate attendee favorite and spiritual precursor to Innovation Sandbox, Launch Pad pits three emerging seed-stage companies in a Shark Tank-esque pitch-off to venture capitalists.
The 2023 judging panel was comprised of Robert Ackerman (Founder & Managing Director, AllegisCyber), Emily Heath (General Partner, Cyberstarts), and Arik Kleinstein (Managing Partner, Glilot Capital Partners) – each listening to the contestants’ extended elevator pitches to determine if they are “in” (as the Sharks would say).
“The contestants this year were a good crop – representative of what’s happening across security companies,” said Heath, “Narrowing the pool down to three was a lot harder than you’d think.”
The finalists this year represented a wide range of security technology including collaboration tools, blockchain protection, and device authentication. And each presentation was so compelling they all received the thumbs up from our VC panel!
Balance Theory
Building the home for cybersecurity collaboration
Presenter: CEO & Co-founder Greg Baker
Overview: Security is a team sport that requires a collective defense, but companies need to be able to provide incentives to collaborate at scale, in the field, while solving real problems. Balance Theory has created unified security collaboration technology that is domain-specific and can help to automate collaboration – key to efficiency with so many security tools on the market.
Guardrail
Intelligent security platform for blockchain
Presenter: Co-founder Sam Saluja
Overview: Crypto crime is on its way to costing $30B a year, with no current tools sufficient to curb it. The existing options are expensive and incorporate one-time audits run by third parties. The Guardrail founders had tried every off-the-shelf point solution and the most exhaustive audits to no avail, so they took a data-driven approach to create the first intelligent security platform for blockchain.
QWERX
Secure device authentication without static certificates
Presenter: CEO Greg Cullison
Overview: The bane of the cybersecurity industry is static credentials – they’re everywhere, they can’t be secured and they’re the leading cause of external data breaches. To combat this rapidly growing problem, QWERX has created the QESP or QWERX Enterprise Secure Perimeter to seamlessly automate continuous verification of all networked devices every three seconds, without needing new hardware. In doing so, no keys are ever stored and therefore cannot be compromised.
QWERX COO and OODA Network Member Randall Fort on Critical Thinking, Exponential Growth and Risk
