Cybersecurity remains a major source of risk for organizations in both the private and public sectors. One recent example is the February ransomware attack on Toyota Motor Corp., which halted all 14 plants in the country and slashed a third of its global production in just one day. As cyberattacks increase both in numbers and complexity, so too must cybersecurity defense.
One company, Prelude, helps its clients harden their cybersecurity defenses by continuously testing digital environments through “safe, proactive cyberattacks.” This week, the company raised $24 million in a Series A fund led by Sequoia Capital to accelerate the development of Prelude’s testing platform. The funding also adds Sequoia Capital partner Bill Coughran to the company as a Prelude board member.
Prelude has three main products — Chains, Operator and Enterprise — each of which provides continuous testing to mimic real-world cyberattacks. As part of the company’s mission to make cybersecurity defense more accessible, Operator is available as a largely free, open-source tool for offensive security assessments.
“Our team believes it is imperative that advanced cybersecurity technology be made accessible to all organizations to raise the collective security floor,” Prelude CEO and co-founder Spencer Thompson said in a statement. “We welcome partnering with Bill and the Sequoia team as we develop Prelude into an enduring company.”
Prelude plans to use its new funds to speed up the development of its testing platform as well as expand its existing partnership with cybersecurity organization MITRE. The two organizations began collaborating on product development, research and training last June.
Prelude’s relationship with MITRE goes back farther than 2021, however. The company’s founding technical team members David Hunt, who now serves as Prelude’s CTO, and Prelude’s Principal Cybersecurity Engineer Alex Manners led the development of MITRE’s automated adversary emulation project, CALDERA.
Insight Partners, IA Ventures, Four Rivers, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and others were also subscribed to the Series A funding round.
