Tag Archive for: startup
Hack the Bank: how cybersecurity startup Hack the Box raised £45m in a recession
Pylarinos attributes this to the company’s humble, bootstrapped beginnings. Despite having now successfully completed three funding rounds (raising a total of $70m) starting out with just a small amount of savings has meant the founders have prioritised profitability since the firm first began operating three years ago.
“We’ve always been very cost-efficient,” he reveals. “Even after our first two financing rounds, we didn’t spend any of the capital. In the current market, this gives you more points than it used to.”
The last profitable tech company
After a string of high-profile startup failures like Pakistan’s top startup Airlift last year, which previously boasted a huge valuation of $270m, it only holds that investors will recoup their losses by prioritising ‘money in the bank’ over expansion. Pylarinos concurs with this theory.
“[This year] was much harder than previous fundraisers that we did in the past,” he admits. “But there was interest because we were never this traditional startup that burns massive amounts of capital or relies on the next fundraiser to endure.”
So, when crafting a business plan, think cautiously before you emphasise growth over survival. For those of us who are used to reading about tech startups like Uber – which, despite being worth over $50bn, didn’t turn a profit until 2021 – that might be a foreign idea.
“Only a few years back, if you were a company that was not spending capital, that translated as [proof] you are not growing fast enough,” acknowledges Pylarinos. “Yet, we were growing fast enough, and spending less capital.
“With the current market conditions, I think we’re in a perfect spot. The risk of going bust in such conditions where capital is not granted, is much larger.”
That theory has been proved this week with a string of high-profile tech layoffs including Spotify. The Swedish music-streaming giant announced it would cut 6% of its 10,000 employees on Monday. The company has never turned a full-year net profit.
It sounds like the company could learn a thing or two from Hack the Box. Writing on the company’s blog, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said, “in hindsight, I was too ambitious in investing ahead of…
How the Startup Nation Became a Global Cyber Power
Professor Chuck Freilich will discuss the in-depth study he co-authored with Dr. Matthew S. Cohen and Professor Gabi Siboni, which details how Israel, the “startup nation,” geared up to address the unprecedented cyber threat it faced—and still faces—and in the process became one of the world’s top cyber powers.
Thursday, February 16, 2023
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM (Pacific Time)
The RSVP link for this virtual book talk will be available soon.
After registering, you will be emailed a meeting link and ID information to join us virtually via Zoom on your computer, tablet or smartphone, or to call into the event on your phone. If you do not receive your email confirmation, check your spam or junk mail folders.
Note: This live event will be recorded and posted online afterward for later viewing on the Y&S Nazarian Center’s multimedia page.
This event is organized by the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies.
About the Book & Talk
Israel is subject to a nearly constant daily barrage of cyber attacks from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and beyond, at times even from close allies. Virtually every possible computer system in Israel, civil and military, has been targeted. A successful attack on Israel’s electric grid, or communications and transportation systems, could not only shut down the country, but expose it to severe military peril.
The book presents the cyber threat Israel faces, the governmental institutions it has established to cope with it, the remarkable cyber security industry it has developed, second only to the United States, and the educational system it has established, from elementary school through university, to train the highly skilled technological manpower needed. The book further addresses the threat on the military level and the role of cyber in Israel’s military strategy, including the famous “Stuxnet” cyber attack, conducted together with the US, which destroyed thousands of Iranian nuclear centrifuges without firing a shot. Israel and the Cyber Threat can be pre-ordered by clicking here.
About the Author
Professor Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel and long-time senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center,…
