Company name: Cloud Range
Amount raised: About $1 million — the company's first outside equity
From whom: The round was led by Circadian Ventures, an Atlanta-based early-stage venture capital fund. The other investors were TechFarms Capital, of Panama City Beach, Florida; and Connetic Ventures, of Covington, Kentucky.
What they do: Cloud Range, founded in 2018, is CEO Debbie Gordon's third startup. Cloud Range simulates cyberattacks for clients, which are primarily Fortune 1000 companies, including those in the energy, telecommunications and health care industries. "A lot of cyber training is focused on individuals wanting to develop their skills. We're focused on the cyber readiness of a company, making them prepared to defend against forthcoming attacks," Gordon said in an interview.
Why it matters: Industry research firm Cybersecurity Ventures estimated that there were 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs worldwide last year. "The problem is only getting worse: There are more cyber attacks, more open jobs, and that leaves companies more vulnerable. And it won’t fix itself," Gordon said. "Unlike a lot of training, cybersecurity changes every day. You can't wait for people to have five years' experience in a job to see if they know how to identify a cyberattack when they sit in a security operations center. You have to accelerate that, and the only way is to incorporate simulation into their learning path."
Investor strategy: "It was very important that our investment partners were entrepreneurs themselves and not just a bunch of finance people, that they had actually walked the walk and knew what it was like in our stage of growth," Gordon said. "We also wanted organizations who had experience in the cybersecurity industry."
What the funds will be used for: "This is a seed for some of the new innovations we're developing," Gordon said. Cloud Range has 11 employees and is hiring.
The top line: 2020 was Cloud Range's first year of revenue. The company doubled that annual revenue in 2021, "and we’re on target to triple that 2021 figure this year," Gordon said. The company has customers on every continent except Antarctica.
