Application programming interfaces, or APIs as they are commonly known, are the foundation of everything we do online. APIs allow two things on the Internet to communicate with each other, including connected devices or phone applications.
But the huge growth in API usage (around half of all internet traffic – is putting company data at risk. A common security risk is granting third parties overly permissive API access. Malicious hackers can leverage APIs to gain access to a company’s sensitive information.
Cybersecurity startup Vorlon says it helps companies protect their data from these types of incidents using its platform and raised $15.7 million to improve its technology.
Founded in 2022 by former Palo Alto Networks executives Amir Khayat and Amichay Spivak, Vorlon analyzes network traffic to detect and remediate potential API abuses in real time.
In an interview, Khayat said the company’s technology runs the analysis and lets the customer know “something they need to be notified about and take action on.”
Vorlon continually watches a company’s APIs and notifies them when vendors make updates, helping to better understand their exposure or potential exposure, Khayat told TechCrunch. The founder also noted that in addition to detecting vulnerabilities and exposures, Vorlon’s platform analyzes the type of data that third-party APIs have access to and where they can connect to other applications.
Vorlon uses AI to analyze and map all the API communications it monitors and translate them into human-readable language. This helps users get an overview of their third-party apps. Vorlon also provides an AI chatbot to allow businesses to search for information in human natural language about any threats or security issues they have. Khayat said Vorlon doesn’t send chatbot data anywhere; instead, it sends user queries to its own databases and the chatbot will return information from the startup’s database.
“In many cases, organizations will not learn of a vendor data breach until months after the fact,” Accel partner Steve Loughlin said in a statement. “Vorlon’s ability to reduce the time between threat detection and remediation to minutes is what makes this technology so powerful.”
Vorlon counts Hubspot, SafeBreach and pre-sales engineering platform Vivun among its first customers since launching its platform in February. The company says it sees significant demand from the financial and healthcare sectors and is targeting companies with at least 1,500 employees.
The Delaware-based startup, with an R&D affiliate in Tel Aviv, currently has around 22 employees and plans to increase that number by adding more people to its sales and product R&D teams using the money from its round. Serie A, which was led by Accelerar.
The equity round featured participation from Shield Capital and cybersecurity angel investors, including Demisto co-founders Slavik Markovich, Rishi Bhargava, Dan Sarel and Guy Rinat, who worked closely with Vorlon’s co-founders at Demisto before It was acquired by Palo Alto Networks in 2019. Former Exabeam CEO Nir Polak and Fox Corporation CTO Paul Cheesborough are also key investors in Vorlon.
