BackBox is a market leader in security-centric automation for network teams. The BackBox Automation Platform for Network Teams helps companies and managed service providers worldwide automate complex tasks, ensure network health and performance, achieve business continuity, and give administrators the confidence that automation will deliver the expected outcome every time. Pulse 2.0 interviewed BackBox CEO Andrew Kahl to learn more about the company.
Andrew Kahl’s Background
Kahl thoroughly enjoys building out and scaling software companies, having navigated both startups and early-stage companies through phases of rapid growth and IPOs. And Kahl said:
“Previously, I was co-founder of CREDANT Technologies, a leading security software firm that was acquired by Dell. I was also VP of Customer Success at NetApp and the first Chief Customer Officer at Sailpoint. I started my career on the HR team at Compaq, giving me the unique opportunity to work with teams of every organizational function. The majority of my career has been with IT infrastructure companies with a focus on building and leading global customer-focused organizations.”
Formation Of BackBox
How did the idea for the company come together? Kahl shared:
“BackBox was originally an Israel-based services company. Their customers were looking for a way to map their network configurations so if they had an outage, they could quickly get the network back up and running. As they started building the service, they realized they could automate the process with software. They built the product from the ground up based on what their customers needed which was network backup and recovery. The founders grew the company to $5 million in revenue.”
“In 2021, Elsewhere Partners, a growth-stage investment firm where I was an Operating Advisor, led a $32 million Series A round. I stepped in as CEO to help the next stage of growth, and we established our new headquarters in Dallas, Texas. At this point, we are focused on rapidly scaling BackBox’s offerings and increasing its market reach in North America and EMEA.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Kahl reflected:
“During my initial meetings with BackBox customers in Europe, I was blown away by the customer success stories, the market potential of BackBox, and the impressive growth the founding team was able to achieve without previous funding. Hearing our customer’s trust in the product first-hand and their ideas for how to grow with BackBox was a huge confidence booster as I was coming on board. There is unlimited potential to expand BackBox’s market reach as network environments become more complex and IT constraints continue to evolve.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Kahl explained:
“Our core product is The BackBox Automation Platform for Network Teams. This Platform supports network and security device automation of over 180 vendors, with thousands of security-centric pre-built automation and a scripting-free way to build new ones. BackBox is a purpose-built automation platform designed to power even the largest network while still being easy to deploy and get value straight out of the box. Enterprises and service providers worldwide trust BackBox to automate anything an admin can do manually, including firewall management, configuration management, vulnerability management, compliance management, and more. BackBox automations are flexible, scalable, contextually aware, and most importantly – reliable.”
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any specific bottlenecks in your sector of work recently? Kahl acknowledged:
“There’s not a specific line item for network automation within IT budgets — they may have storage and security, but very few have it for network automation. Our customers and potential customers in network operations see the value in what we do, but sometimes, they have to be creative to carve out a budget from another part of the organization.
There is a need and an opportunity to educate the broader IT organization decision-makers on how network automation can help meet today’s surging demand for comprehensive network management and security solutions and should be core to their infrastructure budget.”
Evolution Of BackBox’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Kahl noted:
“Until two years ago, our customers were mostly using BackBox’s backup and restore capabilities, with not that much adoption beyond that one use case. We’ve expanded the platform – we’ve shifted from a backup tool to an automation platform to make other use cases as simple as backup and restore.”
“At the end of last year, we launched Network Vulnerability Manager which is designed specifically for network teams to help them understand and remediate the vulnerability state of their networks. Because it’s built on automation it’s the first vulnerability management solution that provides both visibility and remediation.”
“Early this year, we introduced Zero Trust Network Operations (ZTNO), a best practice framework with six actionable pillars to automate cybersecurity considerations at the network layer for NetOps teams. We enhanced the Network Automation Platform with improved Privileged Access Manager, Network Vulnerability Management, and Search to simplify ZTNO for network teams.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Kahl cited:
“Recent milestones that are not product updates and releases include a strategic partnership with Paessler AG to support enterprise and MSP network operations teams. And, the U.S. Army’s selection of BackBox to automate Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs) compliance of their multivendor network environment.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Kahl about the company’s success stories, he highlighted:
“We’ve helped Edafio, a large U.S.-based managed service provider, to secure their network by making device updates dramatically less time-consuming. It used to take them about 70 people hours to perform updates, and the team would have to work nights and weekends. With BackBox, everything is automated. It takes one person about an hour to create and test the update automation they need to update, and they’re notified of any exceptions the next morning when they come in.”
“Similarly, at the U.S. Army, we’ve helped them with DISA STIGs compliance. They had a 92-step checklist that had to be performed on every Palo Alto firewall every couple of weeks. We’ve automated those 92 steps, and the automation are run daily instead of twice a month.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Kahl assessed:
“According to Fortune Business Insights, the network automation market is projected to grow to about $23 billion by 2027. We see tremendous upside and an opportunity to be the company that is synonymous with network automation.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Kahl affirmed:
“Simplicity. Many other solutions ship their products with professional services, while with BackBox, we often have customers who use our trials and then come to us having already implemented the solution on their own. We’re focused on outcomes – Backups, OS Updates, Compliance, and Vulnerability Management – and make those outcomes easy to achieve out of the box.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Kahl concluded:
“We want to evolve into a true IT infrastructure platform that includes network automation. In addition, as we grow, we want to balance customer revenue across our three main markets – North America, Western Europe, and the Middle East.”
