What makes Stairwell one of the top startups to watch in 2021 is its unique approach to cybersecurity built around a vision that all security teams should be able to determine what alerts are threat-related or not and why.
If we accept that we’re never going to catch the A players and we just focus on the B and C, then we won’t ever catch those apex predators. We accept defeat. But I don’t think that’s the way to look at the problem. We came at it from the perspective of this problem is solvable, so how do we go about it?
We have discussed the capabilities of our product with a number of companies, from Fortune 100 to smaller organizations. We want to protect the 25 person law firm as much as the multinational financial institutions. We are seeing a lot of excitement around our vision and strategy, which is the most reassuring thing even at this stage.
In a press release, the company said it wants “to provide security teams with accessible, user-centric tools that help them understand the pivotal relationships between their external and internal data sources. With this intelligence, organizations will be in a much stronger position to proactively combat the most sophisticated and dangerous cyber attacks.” And, in a call with TechCrunch, Wiacek said his vision for the new company is to “empower any team to defend against every attacker.”
Mike Wiacek, founder of Google’s Threat Analysis Group and Alphabet moonshot Chronicle, starts new venture to bring situational awareness to security
SAN FRANCISCO, October 28, 2020 – Stairwell, a new cybersecurity company with a vision to empower any security team to defend against every adversary, today announced a seed investment from Accel Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Gradient Ventures, Allen & Company LLC and other angel investors. Mike Wiacek, founder of Google’s Threat Analysis Group and co-founder / former Chief Security Officer of Alphabet moonshot Chronicle, leads the company as its CEO and founder. Wiacek is joined by Jan Kang, former Chief Legal Officer at Chronicle, as COO and General Counsel.
There were close to 4,000 confirmed breaches last year, nearly double from the year before, according to the latest Verizon Databreach Investigations Report. Enterprises can’t keep pace with the rapid iteration of attacks without an army of analysts because existing tools are focused on macro security trends, not how those trends impact their specific environments. Stairwell wants to provide security teams with accessible, user-centric tools that help them understand the pivotal relationships between their external and internal data sources. With this intelligence, organizations will be in a much stronger position to proactively combat the most sophisticated and dangerous cyber attacks.
“Security teams today are beholden to siloed tools that cannot identify ambient connections between their external and internal data sources and provide only baseline level protection against generic threats,” said Mike Wiacek, founder and CEO of Stairwell. “We started Stairwell so security teams have a cohesive understanding of what’s good, what’s bad, and why, so they can actively defend against the most sophisticated threats.”
"Each year, cyber attacks and corporate cybersecurity spending continue to increase hand-in-hand, and even the world’s top CISOs remain reliant on largely the same set of ‘best practices’," said Steve Loughlin, Partner at Accel Venture Partners. "We were thoroughly impressed by Mike’s vision for Stairwell, which has the potential to fundamentally reshape cybersecurity as we know it and solve a dire unmet need."
Stairwell is building a multidisciplinary team of cybersecurity experts, product designers, software engineers, physicists, and applied mathematicians who share the viewpoint that any security team should be able to defend against every adversary. To learn more about Stairwell and open positions, please visit: Careers at Stairwell.
About Stairwell
Stairwell is building a new approach to cybersecurity around a vision that all security teams should be able to determine what’s good, what’s bad, and why. Stairwell is comprised of security industry leaders and engineers from Microsoft and Google and is backed by Accel Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Gradient Ventures and Allen & Company LLC. For more information, visit Stairwell.com or connect with us on Twitter or LinkedIn.
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