BitLyft Raises $1 Million To Accelerate Security Offerings

‘I think the future of the security space and something that we‘re very much in tune with is that we’re in a code war. We are fighting code with code,’ says Jason Miller, CEO and founder of Bitlyft.

BitLyft has raised $1 million in seed round funding to meet the increased demand for cybersecurity optimization and automation for small and midsize enterprises.

“We want it to be a virtual security analyst,” Jason Miller, CEO and founder of Michigan-based Bitlyft, told CRN. “And then also multiplying that security analyst, so if there is one or two or a team of five at a company we want it to really be the power of 10 or the power of 20 security analysts at their fingertips.”

The funding for the cybersecurity-focused solution provider was provided by NY Technology Capital Partners III, Michigan Angel Fund and Gibbs City Investments. The money will go towards the next generation of the BitLyft AIR platform, an automation and optimization platform designed to reduce labor intensive tasks and optimize SIEM (security information and event management).

“A good 60 to 70 percent of that money is designated towards [AIR platform] software development, product management and the UX (user experience)/UI (user interface) experience,” Miller said.

The remaining funds will go towards helping facilitate sales, marketing initiatives and getting the product to the marketplace.

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“The BitLyft AIR platform enables our customers to increase productivity by automating many of the essential tasks needed to optimize our SIEM technology,” Nancy Reynolds, vice president of channel sales, alliances and global partner programs of Securonix, said in a statement. “It’s a unique partnership and we look forward to the additional value the next generation BitLyft AIR will provide.”

BitLyft also recently partnered with Detroit-based AaDya Security to make the AIR platform an all-in-one cybersecurity platform, providing AaDya customers with enterprise-grade threat detection and automated remediation. Both companies received seed funding from Red Cedar Ventures, a subsidiary of the Michigan State University Foundation, which focuses on technologies and companies arising from Michigan State University‘s faculty, researchers, and students.

With the rise in ransomware attacks, Miller is also seeing a specific rise in attacks on companies going through a merger or acquisition

“The company that is oftentimes getting acquired and merged underneath of a parent [company], they get distracted with that merger and acquisition,” he said. “There‘s a whole workload of, ‘Now we need to take our infrastructure, our employees, our processes and systems and software and fold them into whatever the parent company has.’ What ends up happening is you get distracted as an employee inside that company. Therefore you’re no longer focusing on securing this thing, you’re thinking about, ‘I need to move this thing.’

“They’re having success,” he added. “It’s unfortunate, but the criminals are having success.”

Because of that, Miller said BitLyft is “heavily focused” around virtualizing the security analyst and the automated incident response procedures.

“I think the future of the security space and something that we‘re very much in tune with is that we’re in a code war,” he said. “We are fighting code with code. We don’t want dwell time to happen in a client’s environment too much, so we see the future as to where this needs to go and we want to make sure that the AIR platform is ready to respond quickly for these clients.”