Bishop Fox Looks to Provide Offensive Security with $75M In Additional Funding

As technology becomes more complicated, one of the biggest issues individuals and companies face is security. It is a constantly evolving challenge that is difficult to handle, and often times a breach feels inevitable. However, Bishop Fox is looking to change that with its “forward defense” approach, using offensive security measures that focus on prevention instead of reaction. You can read more about the company and how it plans to use this latest round of funding in the press release below.

PHOENIX, AZ – July 14, 2022 – Bishop Fox, the leading authority in offensive security, today announced $75 million in Series B funding from growth-oriented investment firm, Carrick Capital Partners. The strategic second round brings total funding to $100 million for the 17-year-old cybersecurity firm. The funding will be used to grow the company’s unparalleled team of offensive security experts and fuel expansion of its award-winning Cosmos platform. As part of the transaction, Carrick Managing Director Chris Wenner will join the Bishop Fox board of directors, alongside current board member Will Lin, Managing Director of Forgepoint Capital, the Series A lead investor. Forgepoint Managing Director Don Dixon will shift from his role as a board member to a board advisor.

As cyberattacks escalate in the wake of economic uncertainty and geopolitical dynamics, the US government has proposed legislation designed to increase public and private sector collaboration on cybersecurity, including bills aimed at expanding and activating a broader workforce and promoting education and preparedness in defense of US assets. These initiatives place Bishop Fox in a unique position to lead the market in both areas. The company has developed one of the industry’s most prestigious educational programs for offensive security training and advancement, including Bishop Fox Academy, curriculum developed in partnership with universities, and extensive mentoring resources. Additionally, Bishop Fox’s comprehensive offensive security solutions and industry-leading attack surface management technology help organizations proactively improve their security posture.

The power of Bishop Fox stems from creatively combining technology and automation with unmatched human expertise to find vulnerabilities before the bad guys do. This winning combination serves as the foundation for the Cosmos platform, which performs continuous offensive testing at scale to outpace modern attackers. Executing more than 2.3 billion operations and identifying 13,000+ exposures every week, Cosmos can save security teams more than 5,000 hours per year in vulnerability identification and triage, and reduce the time to remediate critical vulnerabilities by 82%. The increasing demand for the platform resulted in tripling Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in 2021.

“This capital will fuel additional innovation in our Cosmos platform, investment in our people, and expansion of Bishop Fox Academy. By further developing the best technology and talent in the industry, we will continue to define the future of offensive security,” said Vinnie Liu, co-founder and CEO of Bishop Fox. “Additionally, the funding will enable us to accelerate our international expansion, extending our expertise to help even more organizations defend forward. We’re excited to partner with Carrick, an investor who shares our vision and mission.”

“Bishop Fox has one of the best reputations with customers we have ever come across, and the highest quality solutions and tech-enabled services in the cybersecurity industry. The combination of their world-class security operators, unique process, and Cosmos technology platform has enabled them to continuously improve the security posture of complex, global enterprises at scale,” said Wenner. “We are excited to partner with them to extend their leadership position and innovation in offensive security.”

Trusted by thousands of customers including Google, Equifax, John Deere, Sonos, and Zoom, Bishop Fox has continued to gain momentum and receive industry recognition since announcing record growth and success earlier this year. Highlights include:

• Achieving the sole leadership ranking for Cosmos in the Maturity/Platform Play quadrant in the GigaOm Radar Report for Attack Surface Management (ASM).
• Scoring a “hat trick” in three separate industry award programs – the Stevies, the Globees and the Global InfoSec Awards – all of which included innovation among the accolades.
• Growing first quarter bookings by more than 50% year-over-year from 2021 to 2022.
• Increasing the firm’s workforce by 33% since the beginning of the year, with record-setting hiring in the first half of 2022.
• Achieving a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 90 in the first quarter of this year for consulting services, which is considered world class in customer satisfaction.
• Growing its partnership with the ioXt Alliance, which in six months advanced from serving as an Authorized Labs partner to gaining approval to test IoT devices under the ioXt Certification Program’s base profile.
• Expanding the executive team with the additions of Penelope “Penny” Yao as Vice President of Product Management and KJ Nouri as Vice President of Engineering.

“It has been a pleasure to partner with Bishop Fox on their extraordinary journey,” said Lin. “Their demonstrated commitment to comprehensive and continuous security innovation amidst changing customer needs and the evolving threat landscape have made them the solution of choice for modern organizations, and why they are the leader in offensive security. We’re excited to continue our partnership and to welcome Chris and Carrick to the board of directors.”

About Carrick Capital Partners

Headquartered in San Francisco and Newport Beach, Carrick Capital Partners is a growth-oriented investment firm that utilizes ABV (Approach to Building Value) to operationally scale fast-growing, technology-enabled businesses. Carrick adds value by taking a concentrated approach and dedicating significant resources post-investment. Leveraging decades of experience, Carrick helps scale great companies that deliver excellent returns for investors, stimulating economic growth and positively impacting the industry landscape. Working directly with CEOs and entrepreneurs, Carrick fulfills a vital need for investment capital and growth expertise. For more information, please visit www.carrickcapitalpartners.com.

About Forgepoint Capital

Forgepoint Capital is the most active cybersecurity venture capital firm in the world, with 37 active portfolio companies and the largest and most diverse team dedicated to investing in the sector. The firm brings over 100 years of proven company-building experience and its Advisory Council of more than 75 senior executives across industries to back transformative companies protecting the digital future. Founded in 2015, Forgepoint has raised $770 million, deployed over $500 million, and empowered industry leaders such as 1Kosmos, Area 1 Security (Cloudflare), Attivo Networks (SentinelOne), BehavioSec (RELX), Bishop Fox, Cysiv (Forescout), Huntress, IronNet Cybersecurity (IRNT), Noname Security, NowSecure, ReversingLabs, Uptycs and more to reach their market potential. Learn more about Forgepoint at https://forgepointcap.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

About Bishop Fox

Bishop Fox is the leading authority in offensive security, providing solutions ranging from continuous penetration testing, red teaming, and attack surface management to product, cloud, and application security assessments. We’ve worked with more than 25% of the Fortune 100, half of the Fortune 10, eight of the top 10 global technology companies, and all of the top global media companies to improve their security. Our Cosmos platform was named Best Emerging Technology in the 2021 SC Media Awards and our offerings are consistently ranked as “world class” in customer experience surveys. We’ve been actively contributing to and supporting the security community for almost two decades and have published more than 16 open-source tools and 50 security advisories in the last five years. Learn more at bishopfox.com or follow us on Twitter.

The original press release can be found on Bishop Fox’s website.