Investment firm Gula Tech Adventures is launching the Gula Tech Foundation with a goal of providing millions of dollars in competitive grants to cybersecurity nonprofits around the country.
Applications will open Jan. 4 for the first $1 million in grants, which will be the first of several rounds in 2021. Husband-and-wife team Ron Gula, former CEO and co-founder of Tenable Inc., and Cyndi Gula, Tenable co-founder managing parter at Gula Tech Adventures, will be running the foundation with the help of an advisory board.
“Our very first competitive grant program focuses on nonprofits that increase engagement of African Americans in cybersecurity,” Cyndi Gula said, adding they hope the money will allow nonprofits to access additional forms of funding, expand their operations and deepen their impact. “We want to be able to offer those nonprofit a platform to get recognition, enhance their mission and give them a platform of funding to take them to the next level.”
The foundation was a natural extension of their investing, after they realized there needed to be more workforce development as well as a greater focus on personal responsibility in cybersecurity issues, especially as more people work remotely and rely on the internet amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We are happy to invest in the next great cybersecurity widget but what this country needs, what we have coined 'data care,' is personal responsibility,” Ron Gula said. The term is their attempt to rebrand cybersecurity to make it more immediate to regular people who nevertheless interact with cybersecurity issues every day.
The Gulas have invested in dozens of companies over the years, including cyber training startup Cybrary, anti-phishing startup Inky, augmented reality startup Polarity and others. The firm has also invested in other funds, including Inner Loop Capital, .406 Ventures and DataTribe.
The foundation has also assembled an advisory board of 29 members, including Dmitri Alperovitch, executive chairman at Silverado Policy Accelerator, co-founder and former CTO at CrowdStrike; Renaud Deraison, co-founder and CTO at Tenable; Karen Gibson, retired U.S. Army general, former deputy commanding general, U.S. Army Cyber Command; and Tom Quinn, chief information security officer at T. Rowe Price, among others.
In February, the Gula Tech Foundation grant advisory board will select the top three cybersecurity nonprofits and award grants of $500,000, $300,000 and $200,000. After that, the foundation will focus on other areas underrepresented in the cybersecurity community.
“We are running these competitively,” Cyndi Gula said. “We want to make sure the nonprofits are running a bit more like for-profit companies and being able to do a pitch competition and be able to promote their work concisely is part of that."
And while the Gulas have not finalized how often they will disburse grants, they anticipate several times a year. The funding currently comes from the Gules themselves, but they are open to partnerships or outside donations — although they are not actively seeking them. Right now, they are just aiming to help cybersecurity nonprofits of all stripes enhance the conversation about cybersecurity's increasing impacts on everyone.
“It’s a new way to try to engage the public in an area that is not going to slow down," Cyndi Gula said. "We need to go fast. We need different ways to get the public involved and understand their role."
