The five startups featured today were chosen by AI, with ChatGPT selecting these based on the startups’ answers about macro-economic pressures, their VC funding, the track record of their management team, and the growth potential of their market sector. I also used my own first five picks as models for ChatGPT to “learn” from. You can read more about the selection process here.
Five of the startups I selected are also featured here. Startup50 will feature 20 more Challenge #1 Winners throughout May.
Cigent
Year founded: 2018
Funding: $10.1M
Market sector: Data security
What they do: Provide data security capabilities embedded in storage firmware
How macro-economic turmoil is impacting their sector: “Macro security trends impact our sector in a positive way because they demonstrate the need for heightened security. For example, when the new Wiper malware attacks targeted Ukraine, they showed that cyberwarfare could spill over into other domains. Similarly, the increase in IP theft and piracy creates an opportunity for our sector, as enterprises of all types seek to protect their most valuable assets.” – Tom Ricoy, CRO of Cigent
How they will navigate macro-economic pressures: “Competitively, Cigent is in a good position to benefit from these macro-economic challenges because we focus on protecting data as close to the data as possible: in the files and storage where files are stored.
“Our competitors, in contrast, focus on trying to catch adversaries in infrastructure, which is an approach that is difficult to maintain and scale. Because we are focused on protecting data, not on stopping attackers, our prevention-based approach matches what organizations’ need to meet today’s chaotic, complex threat environment.” – Tom Ricoy
Cloudbrink
Year founded: 2019
Funding: $25M
Market sector: Remote access
What they do: Provide secure hybrid access services
How macro-economic turmoil is impacting their sector: “Macro-economic turmoil, and especially Work-from-Home, creates opportunity for our sector. Businesses are concerned about the productivity of hybrid workers, and IT issues, particularly unreliable network connections at the edge, undermine the productivity of hybrid workers.” – Prakash Mana, CEO of Cloudbrink
How they will navigate macro-economic pressures: “Cloudbrink is an all-software business, and our solution is delivered as a cloud service. This means we are insulated from supply-chain issues, and we can offer customers the same benefit. Rivals depend on more expensive hardware, which needs to be rolled out and supported. We use existing cloud/edge resources to deliver our service, which can scale as fast as our customers need it to. We can also deploy new points of presence anywhere in the world at a few minutes’ notice. Plus, we deliver dramatic and demonstrable improvements in security and performance that translate into clear productivity gains.” – Prakash Mana
Ordr
Year founded: 2015
Funding: $90M
Market sector: Cybersecurity
What they do: Discover and secure connected devices
How macro-economic turmoil is impacting their sector: “With more than 30 billion internet-connected devices operating today and 80 billion in service by 2025, according to ZK Research, each unknown, unmanaged, and unsecure device increases an organization’s attack surface.
“The current market turmoil has impacted every company, for sure, but the major takeaway in the cybersecurity space has been the need to demonstrate clearly the value of the solution and how it can have an impact on a customer operationally and financially.” – Jim Hyman, CEO of Ordr
How they will navigate macro-economic pressures: “Ransomware attacks are increasing, using spam/phishing as an entry point, and attackers are achieving lateral movement via connected devices. IoT, IoMT, and OT devices often run outdated operating systems, have different operational owners, and are not designed with security in mind, creating a massive attack surface. For example, as many as 20% of connected devices operating in healthcare organizations are unaccounted for. The market needs a common platform that can deliver visibility and security for every device.
“Ordr is well-positioned to provide that platform because of how easy it is for organizations to understand the impact of the solution. Ordr closes that visibility gap while providing focused, actionable, and accurate insights and workflows. During an attack, Ordr empowers teams to quickly mitigate risks with reactive policies, including quarantining devices, blocking traffic, terminating sessions, or implementing Zero-Trust segmentation. When new indicators of compromise are announced, teams can use Ordr to retrospectively identify infected devices that are already in the network.
“Global organizations from Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic to Nexteer and Woodforest Bank have deployed Ordr to discover and secure their connected devices.” – Jim Hyman
Socian AI
Year founded: 2019
Funding: $225K
Market sector: AI and data analytics
What they do: Provide B2B SaaS tools that ensure data of any size, type, and format can be collectively analyzed, interpreted, and utilized by enterprises in real time
How macro-economic turmoil is impacting their sector: “Panic and will to achieve resilience have been the driving forces since COVID-19 hit. The former concern positively impacted the market of the intelligence industry, while the latter created more demand for automation. This duo has made companies seek more immediate intelligence, insights, and actions without over-depending on less resilient means. This has benefited the overall AI space, with this trend further accelerated by major movers like OpenAI, which made our market more generally acceptable. Overall, financial and geopolitical turmoil have increased the demand for AI, automation, and other resilient technological ventures.” – Adib Ahnaf, COO of Socian AI
How they will navigate macro-economic pressures: “Socian AI is in a good position to take advantage of macro-economic turmoil for a few reasons. First, we focused on accelerated innovation, rather than technical perfection, during the COVID-19 disruptions. This helped us gain an unfair advantage through new capabilities and strong partnerships.
“Next, our beachhead market, the data intelligence sector, expanded and our technology is gaining more acceptance within it. This has further given us an edge against other data analytics and automation competitors.
“Finally, because we built our company to be resource light, yet technologically heavy, we are better able to weather macro-economic challenges. During COVID-19, we took a hybrid approach to our workforce, and we focused on automated procedures. As a result, our operational efficiency increased, and we drove our product costs down significantly.” – Adib Ahnaf
Virdee
Year founded: 2020
Funding: $9M
Market sector: Hospitality technology
What they do: Provide contactless guest-experience software and kiosks for hotels, multifamily buildings, vacation rentals, and student housing
How macro-economic turmoil is impacting their sector: “The hospitality sector has been hit hardest by lack of staffing following COVID-19, as many employees looked for other opportunities during the pandemic and/or now want to be able to work from home or just have more time at home with their family. It’s making it harder and harder for properties to find the staffing they need. Additionally, depending on the region, not all business and leisure travel is back to normal (but it’s improving).” – David Schnepp, VP of Marketing for Virdee
How they will navigate macro-economic pressures: “Virdee was founded during the pandemic, and our technology addresses two main trends: 1) The lasting decline of frontline staff for hospitality, and 2) the ongoing demand from guests for digital services at hotels (accelerated by the pandemic). We enable hotels to do more with less labor, not only keeping the status quo from eroding, but also improving the on-property experience and making technology into a feature and amenity.” – David Schnepp
