Balbix sets out to automate cyber risk quantification in the hybrid cloud

Today, cybersecurity posture automation provider Balbix announced it had raised $70 million in series C funding, to expand its go-to-market capabilities and address market needs including unified asset inventory, vulnerability management, cyber risk quantification and secure posture automation. 

The organization’s automated cyber risk quantification solution is designed to provide organizations with real-time visibility into cyber risks within their environment, so they can identify and mitigate risks using AI before an attacker has an opportunity to exploit them. 

Balbix’s approach will offer technical decision makers a way to gain a top-down perspective of cyber risks in the environment and reduce the chance of a data breach.

Cloud security calls for automated cyber risk posture management 

Recently, organizations have struggled to secure their environments against external threats with the number of data breaches rising 68% in 2021, just as 90% of organizations moved to cloud environments. 

Many organizations are struggling to secure their environments because they’re leveraging complex hybrid cloud deployments while lacking the internal expertise to secure them, with 57% of large organizations suffering from the cybersecurity skills crisis. 

However, as more security teams struggle to manage hybrid cloud environments, many organizations using automation and AI to solve these challenges with some success. Research suggests that organizations that use automation and security AI spend $3.81 million less in data breaches than companies without it. 

Balbix is aiming to position itself as the go-to AI solution for cyber risk posture management. “The enterprise attack surface is massive, with new security vulnerabilities emerging constantly. Security teams can’t keep up or quantify their risk,” said Gaurav Banga, CEO and Founder of Balbix. 

“With Balbix organizations can measure and reduce cyber risk by automating critical components of their cybersecurity posture management. CISOs and CIOs can demonstrate the ROI of their cybersecurity program and confidently report on their security posture to the board of directors and other stakeholders. Most importantly, security leaders can show a decrease in cyber risk because of their improved ability to mitigate risks quickly,” he said. 

The next generation of cybersecurity posture management

Balbix is part of a cloud security posture management market that researchers valued at $4 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $9 billion by 2026 as the increase in demand for cloud infrastructure increases the need for cloud security solutions.  

While Balbix now has more than $100 million in total funding and has doubled its annual recurring revenue over the last twelve months, it’s competing against several significant competitors.

One of these is Checkpoint, which generated $599 million in revenue in 2021 and offers enterprises a solution called CloudGuard Cloud Security Posture Management, which enables users to visualize the security posture of multicloud assets, 

Another competitor is ThreatStack, which detects threats in real-time across modern application and API events, which was acquired last year for $68 million by F5. 

Even though these competitors are firmly established in the market, Banga argues that Balbix is the only vendor with automated cyber posture management capabilities. 

“Balbix automates cybersecurity posture management for hybrid cloud environments, from asset inventory and risk-based vulnerability management to cyber risk quantification,” Banga said, citing the solutions’ asset inventory, vulnerability prioritization, remediation, and risk quantification capabilities as key differentiators.