Anetac is a dynamic identity and security platform that offers continuous visibility of the ever-evolving service account landscape that every organization encounters today. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Anetac co-founder and CEO Tim Eades to learn more about the company.
Tim Eades’ Background
What is Tim Eades’ background? Eades said:
“As a child, I grew up in a poor neighborhood in England. To paint a picture, a coal merchant would come by in his truck and deliver coal to our house, carrying these big black sacks over his shoulder into the backyard to bring to our coal shed. When it was cold outside, I would go grab the scuttle and coal for our boiler to only heat certain rooms throughout the house. We did not have the luxury of double-glazing windows, and it got so cold when it snowed the windows began to freeze, and ice started to form inside my bedroom. From those humble beginnings, I became the security leader I am today by learning grit through hard work and life obstacles.”
“During my early days, I found a passion for technology and computers. I was so set on going to college that I forged my father’s signature.”
“From there, I was able to become CEO of four companies, my fourth being a co-founder and the CEO of Anetac. I have also been investing in security companies across the past two decades, and I am a board member for multiple companies.”
Formation Of Anetac
How did the idea for the company come together? Eades shared:
“The idea of Anetac was forged one night in a pub while debating the sheer size and nature of the identity problem. It ended up being much worse than I ever thought, so I leaped into developing my dream identity security team immediately.”
“Anetac started with a group of seven founders with a deep understanding of the cyber security challenges a hybrid enterprise faces and how a dynamic problem requires a dynamic solution. We conducted over 35 customer interviews across a diverse range of industry verticals, questioning the challenges with enterprise identities, the trajectory of the problem, and the cost of doing nothing to fix the problem. We found that many customers had similar identity vulnerabilities across the board. Our go to market strategy was to ensure customers felt like they had a say in our development process when building our solution, so we were always crafting a security solution that is made from the ground up for enterprises facing identity problems.”
“This led to Anetac. Our primary business goal is to be the leader in discovering, understanding, qualifying, and prioritizing the identity-based vulnerabilities inside an enterprise along with building and automating treatment plans to reduce the attack surface, fundamentally improving security posture and preventing breaches inside an organization.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Eades reflected:
“It is impossible to pick just one, so I will share my top three favorite memories. There’s a great memory of me and some of the co-founders sitting on the floor eating pizza because we didn’t have any furniture in our new office. We were a brand new startup, developing a business strategy while sitting on the floor eating pizza, and it was a precious moment. A second favorite memory of mine was getting our first customer. It is one thing to find a company and get funding, but it is a different feeling entirely to have a customer pay you for the idea you created. Lastly, going out from stealth with our series A completed was wonderful to experience.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Eades explained:
“Core Product: The Anetac Dynamic Identity and Security Platform
Core features:
— Real-time monitoring and security for service accounts
— Access chain mapping
— Behavioral analysis
— Dynamic attack surface reduction
Unlike static scanning tools, Anetac’s solution offers real-time streaming and visibility into service account access chains, protocols, security hygiene, privilege escalations and indicators of attack and compromise, enabling security teams to quickly identify and remediate vulnerabilities before malicious actors can exploit them.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Eades and the team face in building the company? Eades acknowledged:
“In the current world of security, it’s not enough for the founding team to understand both the market and the problem they are solving. What is most critical is actually how you access that market, because it’s never been more difficult to get access to the CISO or head of security. We developed a small team to explore a unique go to market strategy over the last year. Additionally, we went pure partner based strategy, meaning we included partner insights throughout the entire development process. Therefore, we truly understood the identity challenge every enterprise is facing, and built a product that meets the needs of partners. It is all about growing and nurturing a relationship to grant mutual success with reducing the security issue.”
Evolution Of Anetac’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Eades noted:
“The biggest thing you need to have as a company developing a product with a fast time to value is endurance, because it is a journey that you never really finish. Simplicity is the goal, so you can deploy the product within minutes and see value within the hour. When I was a teacher at a university, I taught the notion of continuous paranoia, which is about simplicity, time to value, and customer engagement of your product.”
“At Anetac, we will continue to innovate dramatically on discovering and understanding identity based vulnerabilities in an enterprise. Our strategy was to define the product with customers, all the way from version 0 to version 1. We learnt quickly that it was essential to have a very intuitive product that is easy to use and install.”
“We did not just interview 35 customers and call it a day; we continuously interviewed customers, 1-2 a day, to help us test, reshape, and refine the product until it was ready for launch. When that day arrived, we were ecstatic and our customers were pleased that we listened to their feedback to make a product specifically designed to address the identity vulnerabilities negatively impacting enterprises. Just like our product, we were continuously monitoring our customers to make tweaks and adjustments along the development journey.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Eades cited:
“When you begin understanding these identity-based vulnerabilities in an organization, that is a special feeling. When your technology is being used to detect and remedy nation-state attacks on an organization, providing unique insight into what is happening and how to respond, that is a very unique feeling as well. With 80% of breaches in 2023 being identity based, it is essential that enterprises focus on the smart identity-focused security solutions that can minimize the likelihood of a data breach.”
“As a leader, you might validate an idea and even ship a product, but what you must do is show value and solve the problem you set out to fix. As the new and fresh identity security company in the space, the little guys, it can feel extremely validating and rewarding when your platform is on the line of defense to protect enterprises from nation-state actors.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Eades about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“We had one education customer where our penetration testing partner went back to the education institute they attended 20 years ago. When they returned as a penetration tester for a security firm, they found out that all of their accounts were still active with the same credentials. He was able to simply log back in, using 20-year-old credentials with full access privileges, to go wherever he wanted and open whatever he wanted. He was essentially able to return to his education institute and log back in like he was still an attending student with full access to everything. This gap in security is massive and demonstrates a real need for a modern security solution with streaming capabilities that can provide full visibility into the entire company landscape and consistently show the status of their security posture. Cyber hygiene is critical, and this was a clear case study where the risk was prevalent.”
Funding
When asking Eades about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“Anetac launched out of stealth on May 6, 2024 with a funding total of $16 million. Liberty Global led the latest round, joined by Shield Capital, The General Partnership, Anetec CEO Tim Eades, and cybersecurity expert Jason Witty. Anetac was in stealth for a year but was building a customer base the entire time. At the current rate, Anetac is earning a new customer every week following the launch from stealth.”
“The $16 million in funding allows Anetac to focus on their goal of crafting a seamless business experience to elevate its service offerings to cater to security leaders’ needs in the modern threat landscape.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Eades assessed:
“Identity management platforms and active user directories are the core for how enterprises run identities. The total addressable market size is somewhere between 15-25 billion.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Eades affirmed:
“The Anetac Dynamic Identity and Security Platform was built from the ground up in close collaboration with and insight from a community of CISOs, design partners, and security executives. The Dynamic Identity and Security Platform includes the following capabilities:
— Real-time streaming visibility of non-human and shared-use service accounts, reducing blind spots and improving security hygiene – in a recent retail organization’s deployment, we discovered that 20% of provisioned accounts had never been used, 55% of all accounts were disabled, 30% had passwords over a year old and hundreds of passwords that were over 5 years old
— Mapping of access chains illuminating complex chains between service accounts, critical resources, business applications, and processes
— Automated behavioral analysis combined with time-series data detecting unusual activity and expediting discovery and incident response time
— Dynamically reducing attack surface by continuously mapping and reinforcing the organizations’ security posture”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Eades concluded:
“We just launched out of stealth on May 6, 2024, with customers and our series A funding. For the next steps, we are building up our customer base with 1-2 new customers every week. We have both the right product and the right team to attain our goal of making Anetac the leader in discovering, understanding, qualifying, and prioritizing the identity-based vulnerabilities inside an enterprise. With adversaries constantly looking for new avenues and strategies to perform their attacks, there needs to be a security solution that empowers teams to improve their security posture and prevent organizational breaches in the modern threat landscape. We have that tool.”
