After growing a cyber defense company for the past six years, Jacksonville-based OnDefend has pivoted to expand and is expecting unprecedented growth in 2022.
The company began in 2015 testing cyber defenses for mostly local companies, but due to a confluence of Covid-19's acceleration of remote work and an increasing computer literate C-Suite, OnDefend has never been more sought after. During the past two years, the firm has expanded to provide a suite of defense software that Co-founder and Managing Partner Chris Freedman said has the potential to vastly expand their operation.
The Business Journal recently sat down with Freedman to talk about the company's growth and its path forward.
How did the software security side of the business come about? Was it an evolution of vending third-party software or was this an organic outgrowth of penetration testing?
We didn't really sell third-party software. This was more of an outgrowth from clients' requests. For instance, we were asked to create a product that can simulate ransomware on a supply chain. We couldn't find any sufficient software available for enterprise or retail, so we had to begin creating our own suite of tools. Since that initial success, we've refined those tools and have created packages for consultants, analysts and companies to use commercially.
What sets you apart from your industry with these services?
For cyber security firms, you typically either buy their product or don't. What's really neat about us is that you can try before you buy. We hire out our services as a private label security firm and do the work on behalf of our client. They can make money off our services. Once they see it works, they can purchase the suite.
How quickly is this new division growing?
Rapidly. We're doing about 70% penetration testing and consulting and about 30% on products currently. We've already expanded significantly in the previous two years since Covid. As we continue to prove out our line of software, I believe we will double in size. We're already rapidly scaling for growth.
What industry are you most closely monitoring right now for changes?
Our software is industry agnostic, which allows us to operate fairly universally. But we're watching what happens with the Department of Defense's new rules under the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program that requires end-to-end compliance for all levels of the supply chain. If this happens, it could be a game-changer for us and security in general.
What's next?
We're in the midst of rebranding to fully incorporate our new business model. We will be scaling our software division and customer support division to match our growing demand. But the big thing — we are from Jacksonville — we want to continue to honor this city. We want this city to become a technology hub... a place that has jobs of the future. We aim to bring quite a few here.
