Check Point Founder Invests In Breach Detection Startup LightCyber

After a series of successful investments in the security space, Check Point Software founder Shlomo Kramer has placed his next big bet. Kramer revealed he has made a personal equity investment and joined the board of directors at breach detection company LightCyber.

In addition to co-founding Check Point, Kramer also founded, and serves as CEO of, Imperva. He was also an early investor of IBM acquisition target Trusteer, and was an early investor and board member of Palo Alto Networks. Kramer did not disclose how much of his personal money is being funneled into his latest investment in Los Altos, Calif.-based LightCyber.

In an interview with CRN, Kramer said he sees LightCyber at the front of a "new frontier" in network security with its solution to detect active cyberattacks at both the network and endpoint levels.

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"The problem is really important," Kramer said. "The market is at the beginning of its life cycle, but this is going to be a big and significant market in security."

Being able to detect breaches when they happen is a very complicated process, but Kramer said LightCyber has developed an easy-to-deploy solution that provides actionable steps to remediate the problem. In addition, Kramer praised the quality of the LightCyber team.

"I think at this stage in the market, I saw that what this team developed is head and shoulders above everything I've seen around," Kramer said.

LightCyber CEO Gonen Fink said having someone like Kramer on board -- a well-known investor with an extensive history of growing successful large companies -- is "critical."

"I think it's critical to learn from success in other companies in order to use this experience to build as high as we can reach," Fink said. "I think both of us believe that we have a very strong opportunity to build a strong company here," he said.

Fink also highlighted Kramer's history of building and investing in companies with a strong channel focus. Fink said he sees having a strong presence in the channel as key to the company's growth going forward. While LightCyber is still in its early stages, Fink said it is already engaging with some 15 security-focused channel partners across the U.S. as part of that strategy.

"We see this huge opportunity because it's something that will be needed by each and every company in the market. To be able to address this growth segment of the market ... we have to build a company with a very strong channel focus ... to allow us to scale up and reach as a trusted adviser to customers," Fink said. "That is something we see critical for success and where [Kramer] has unique experience," he added.

Fink said the company's current channel partners, which are primarily regional security resellers, have responded very positivity to the solution, particularly around its simplicity in implementation and use. He said LightCyber plans to continue expanding its partner base in the U.S., as well as leveraging partners to expand into the Europe and Asia-Pacific markets.

PUBLISHED JUNE 5, 2015