Cylance has hired AlienVault veteran Brian Robins as its chief financial officer (CFO), sparking speculation that the cybersecurity company is aligning itself for an eventual IPO (initial public offering).
Robins joins Cylance during a period of strong growth. Indeed, the company's artificial intelligence-based advanced persistent threat (APT) and malware protection solutions have generated strong customer demand. The company's most recent annual revenues grew 283 percent and bookings jumped 119 percent. Cylance's overall customer base has grown 169 percent in the past year, and the company now protects more than 5 million endpoints.
Speculation about a potential Cylance IPO has circulated ever since the company announced a $100 million Series D funding round in June 2016. Cylance was the fastest growing private, midsize company on last year’s Orange County Business Journal annual list. The company’s sales climbed to $81.8 million for the 12-month period ended June 30, 2016, up from $13 million the prior year. However, the growth hasn't been without some challenges -- including some job cuts earlier this year.
Assuming all the figures above are correct, quick math suggests Cylance's 2017 annual revenues were about $310 million. We have not, however, confirmed the estimate with Cylance.
Cylance Talent Grab
Robins has more than 20 years of experience in accounting and finance for security and technology companies. Most recently, he was CFO at AlienVault. Earlier, he held financial and executive roles at Bankers Trust, CSC, MCI, NeuStar and Verisign.
Robins is one of several recent Cylance executive additions. The company in June appointed Rahul Kashyap as its chief product officer and John Giacomini as its executive vice president of global sales.
Kashyap previously served as executive vice president of products at Bromium and led worldwide threat research at McAfee Labs. At Cylance, he is responsible for strategy, innovation and architecture. Meanwhile, Giacomini has led global sales teams for security companies for over 17 years.
Cylance Expansion
Eager to maintain its growth, Cylance has also diversified its product line and brand reach. The company earlier this month launched CylancePROTECT Home Edition, a next-generation antivirus product that may help MSSPs and Cylance partners extend their reach from offices to employees' homes.
CylancePROTECT Home Edition ensures any employee device with access to a network or corporate data is protected with the same AI-powered defenses as the computers and mobile devices issued by employers' IT departments, May Mitchell, Cylance's vice president of worldwide field and channel marketing, told MSSP Alert.
Furthermore, employers can use CylancePROTECT Home Edition to expand their perimeter defenses to any devices their employees' families own without the burden of supporting these devices, Mitchell said.
CylancePROTECT Home Edition is available to all channel partners who are currently authorized to sell Cylance licenses, Mitchell stated, and the minimum order is 1,000 licenses. It also is available to employees of Cylance enterprise customers in North America.
Additional insights from Joe Panettieri.
