Top 20 Fastest Growing Cybersecurity Companies in Q1 2021

If you track 2,635 cybersecurity companies, as I do, how do you know which ones to pay attention to?

Those with PR teams that reach out to brief you? They often have a great story to tell and have some interesting new technology to demonstrate.

New funding rounds at high valuations? That can be a great leading indicator. At least an investor thinks the company is going to do well.

Those that publish great research reports? Absolutely. If they are sharing new stuff, it is well worth learning from them and watching them.

I have found that tracking employee headcount, as reported by LinkedIn, is also very helpful. It is open source, and therefore hard to manipulate by the vendors themselves. (Well, they could create a bunch of fake employees to boost their numbers, but they would get caught.)

For Security Yearbook 2021 and my other research reports, I gathered headcount data for every vendor tracked for every quarter since January 2020. That’s five quarters of data.

Below, I list the top 20 fastest-growing cybersecurity companies in Q1 2021. I removed the vendors that doubled headcount from one to two employees and thereby grew by 100%. Even the companies that grew from three to seven are worth watching to see if they continue to grow.

Vendor growth in headcount can often be accounted for by looking at recent funding. What else are you going to do if you take in $130 million other than hire a lot of people? The real insight comes when recently funded companies stop adding people and even drop in headcount. I look for a management change or a quick sale if that occurs. Many companies stopped hiring in March last year during the uncertain beginning of the pandemic, amid worries of a financial slowdown. Most cybersecurity companies did well last year, and began hiring again in the third quarter.

The growth leader, according to my data, was a Polish 2FA company called Rublon. They sell an app for smartphones used for access control. Since this is exactly what Cisco’s Duo does, it is a great example of how a regional company can thrive. Many customers prefer to buy locally. Rublon grew from three to 13 employees in Q1.

Cortex Insight saw similar growth: from four people to 13. They are a SaaS platform for vulnerability management based in the UK.

Transbox, a Korean information rights management solution, grew from seven to 20 people in the first quarter.

HD Moore’s Rumble is growing thanks to the increased interest in device discovery on networks. Their product, Rumble, is fast and comprehensive. I interviewed HD about it here.

Ontario-based Cavelo grew to 10 people in Q1. They do data discovery and compliance.

When you rank companies by number of employees, the law of large numbers apply. For a company with more than 30 employees to grow by 100%, as high flying unicorn Wiz did, there is something going on. Wiz took in $100 million in investment in 2020 for its cloud configuration management offering.

As you can see by these examples, tracking headcount is a great way to identify interesting companies to follow. Next, I will look at the vendors that declined the most in Q1 2021.

Company Name

Sub Category

Website

Q1 2021 growth

HC on

Apr 1, 2021

Rublon2FAhttp://rublon.com/

333.3

13

Cortex InsightVulnerability Measurementhttp://www.cortexinsight.com/

225.0

13

TransBoxIRMhttp://www.transbox.xyz/

185.7

20

RumbleEndpoint Discoveryhttps://rumble.run/

150.0

5

Cavelo IncData Discoverywww.cavelo.com

150.0

10

SyncdogMobile Securityhttps://www.syncdog.com/

145.5

27

Cyan ForensicsEndpoint Forensicshttps://www.cyanforensics.com/

106.3

33

WizCloud configuration scanninghttps://wiz.io

100.0

62

CloudGuardNetwork access controlhttps://www.onway.ch/

100.0

14

Block ArmourZero-Trust Networkinghttp://www.blockarmour.com/

87.5

15

DeepfenceIPShttp://www.deepfence.io/

80.0

18

KandjiMDM for Apple Deviceshttp://www.kandji.io/

78.3

82

LaceworkCloud Deployment Securityhttp://lacework.com/

71.5

379

C1SecureCompliance Monitoring Platformhttps://c1secure.com/

66.7

20

FuturaeAuthenticationhttp://www.futurae.com/

66.7

20

KobaltManaged Security Serviceshttp://www.kobalt.io/

62.5

13

SecureData, Inc.Encrypted Hard Driveshttp://securedata.com/

60.5

69

ArmorbloxDLPhttp://armorblox.com/

59.6

75

TrustLayersIRMhttp://trustlayers.com/

57.1

22

DeepSourceStatic Code Analysis for Python and Gohttps://deepsource.io/

57.1

33

 

 

 

Richard Stiennon

Richard Stiennon is the author of Security Yearbook 2021: A History and Directory of the IT Security Industry. He has held leadership roles at PwC, Webroot Software, Fortinet, and Blancco Technology Group. He was a Research VP at Gartner. He researches and reports on 2,615 IT security vendors. His clients are vendors, investment firms, and CISOs at large enterprises.

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