Jacksonville-based Start Left Security is now in full expansion mode after it closed an oversubscribed $3 million seed financing round in July.
Since then, CEO and Founder Jeremy Vaughan said the cyber security company has been ramping up its personnel and investing into its future while already experiencing growth through customer acquisition.
The Business Journal caught up with Vaughan recently at the 10th annual Tech Coast Conference to see how the cyber defense company is doing since its seed funding round. Here is a lightly edited transcript of the interview:
It's been about two months since you closed the seed round. How's everything been since?
We've nailed down our hiring plan, and we've started to bring many of them on like chief product officer, chief growth officer and senior vice president of sales. They all believe in our vision. We're extremely grateful for the team that we're building.
About how large is your team now?
Twenty as of yesterday (Aug. 24) and we're actually putting out a couple more offers later this week.
Reflecting back at the beginning of your fundraising round. What are some of the things you've learned along the way?
Raising money was definitely hard at the beginning. Because it was my first time raising money, I didn't exactly know who to talk to or where exactly I needed to go. At first, I thought approaching cybersecurity VCs would have been a bad idea because they could be potential competitors or could be looking for business intelligence. But once I realized that wasn't the case, I began to make a lot of headway. So for me, embracing my industry and approaching industry veterans was a source of success.
What would you do differently?
Honestly, you just have to go through the process. It's kinda like a video game. You need the XP (experience) to level up. You learn the game and learn how to negotiate.
What advice would you give to an entrepreneur just now starting out on their funding venture?
You constantly need to be strengthening your vision and refining your processes. But like I said, you just need to go through the process to fully understand it. There is an extra challenge for anyone trying to raise funds right now ... the investment market isn't that hot. So even more so now, you really have to set yourself out from other projects and startups to succeed.
What's next for Start Left?
We've begun work on changing our cybersecurity platform. We've launched version two recently and have already begun iterating. We're working on innovations to disrupt the industry but also separate us from the herd. We've already hired people to help us with that vision. We will be aiming to continue to grow our sales channels and add to our partnerships. But in general, we will keep growing.
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