With backing from private equity, four cybersecurity companies have combined into one and have set up shop in Northern Virginia.
The New York investment firm Achieve Partners acquired two local firms — McLean-based W@tchTower and Stage 2 Security in Lanham — along with Phoenix-based Mosaic451 and Metmox in Schaumberg, Illinois, over the course of 2022 and has merged them into a new, McLean-based company called UltraViolet Cyber.
The company has been up and running for a few months, though Achieve only announced its launch this week. It has about 400 employees and its CEO is George McKenzie, the former CEO at Stage 2 Security,
“It's a new company by name," McKenzie said of UltraViolet, "but, in the aggregate, the companies have been around, somewhere between five and 10 years."
This is McKenzie's third go-round as CEO of a cybersecurity company. Before founding Stage 2 Security, he founded Alexandria-based Defense Point Security, which Accenture Federal Services acquired in 2017. In an interview, he said he is excited about the challenge of leading his biggest company yet and “building something and integrating something that we could take to market that’s far greater than the sum of its parts.”
Two former heads of the predecessor companies have also joined the UltraViolet's leadership. Srikanth Parepally, the former CEO at Metmox, is the new company's president of global operations, and Mischel Kwon, who had been W@tchTower's CEO, is a member of UltraViolet's board of directors.
The company melds two approaches to cybersecurity. Its "red" team is made up of offensive-minded cybersecurity professionals who do penetration testing and look for holes in a client company’s cybersecurity defenses. Its "blue" team is made up of defensive-minded professionals who implement the plans to plug those holes. Mixed together, red and blue create purple, hence the name UltraViolet.
McKenzie said the company has about $50 million in annual recurring revenue. Its headquarters is at 1660 International Drive and it has offices in Phoenix, Lehi, Utah, and India.
He added that the company is looking to hire about 30 cloud security engineers, architects and other cybersecurity professionals. Finding that talent can be a challenge, though, so UltraViolet also has created an internal workforce development program in which it provides training for people from nontraditional IT backgrounds for careers in the cybersecurity field.
