RunSafe Security, a McLean startup that sells cybersecurity products to defend critical infrastructure across multiple industries, has raised $12 million to ramp up hiring efforts.
Coimbra, Portugal investment firm Critical Ventures and Arlington's SineWave Venture Partners led the Series B funding round for RunSafe, which also got participation from the investment arms of German automaker BMW AG and Bethesda aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT), among other new and prior investors.
In an interview, RunSafe founder and CEO Joe Saunders told me he plans to double the company's workforce, bringing it to 50 employees by early next year, having already doubled it since last year. The bulk of that growth has been in sales and marketing.
The rapid hiring comes as the profitable company sees a drastic increase in demand for its products, fueled partly by recent European Union and U.S. Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity edicts, which Saunders claims RunSafe's software tools address. Saunders declined to share revenue but said sales have tripled over the past two years and he expects it to at least double this year.
"We are very uniquely positioned to help secure critical infrastructure and really fend off not only nation-state attacks but any kind of exploitation that's targeting memory vulnerabilities and critical infrastructure," Saunders said. "That need is high, and that's probably the single most significant driver of our business."
Saunders launched RunSafe in 2017 and it was named as a Fire Awards honoree by DC Inno in 2020. It has raised $24 million in total. Its most notable customers include BMW and Lockheed and its products, which are used by developers during the software building process, can be used across industries.
"I think we all take for granted that water systems work, or energy distribution systems work, and data centers are cool enough so that servers don't overheat, or that planes aren't compromised," Saunders said. "But if any of those systems are under attack, obviously there's significant negative consequences. And so we're driven by ensuring that we're helping societies maintain well-functioning services that that we all depend on."
