Reco is an identity-centric SaaS security platform and it empowers organizations to discover their SaaS applications, identities, and data, control access and prevent the risk of exposure. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Reco Co-Founder and CEO Ofer Klein to learn more about the company.
Ofer Klein’s Background
What is Klein’s background? Klein said:
“My name is Ofer Klein. I am the Co-Founder and CEO for Reco, a company focused on protecting organizations from cyber threats using our comprehensive, identity-centric SaaS security offering. I am a former Israeli Defense Force helicopter pilot and avid kitesurfing enthusiast. I liken the adrenaline rush to being a founding CEO of a thriving security startup. I am also a serial entrepreneur, I have vast experience in building and growing GTM teams with SaaS companies in the US. And, I’m passionate about leading solutions for the distributed workforce.”
Formation Of Reco
How did the idea for Reco come together? Klein shared:
“Reco was created while the leadership team was serving with the Israeli Defense Forces. Myself, along with Reco Co-Founders Tal Sharipa, who currently serves as Chief Technology Officer, and Gal Nakash, who currently serves as Chief Product Officer, developed the platform and AI algorithm to use for counterintelligence for the Israeli government. After that success, we decided to productize the platform in 2020, which was when Reco was born.”
Core Features
Tell us more about the industry need for SaaS application protection and about your technology and core features? Klein explained:
“During the pandemic, cloud collaboration tools fundamentally changed the way modern organizations work. Enterprises today are adding new applications to their technology stack at an unprecedented rate, using an average of 371 SaaS applications. This dramatic increase has resulted in an elevated demand for a security solution that provides full visibility into everything connected to a company’s SaaS environment and at the same time, ensures it complies with regulations.”
“AI is the foundation to our SaaS security offering and gives users enhanced functionality and effectiveness. Our technology empowers organizations with full visibility into every application, identity, and their actions, to seamlessly prioritize and control risks in the SaaS ecosystem. The technology connects in minutes and provides immediate value to security teams to continuously discover all SaaS applications, including sanctioned and unsanctioned applications, associated identities from both humans and machines, their permission level, and actions. We also leverage advanced analytics around persona, actions, interactions and relationships to other users, and then alerts on exposure from misconfigurations, over-permission users, compromised accounts, and risky user behavior. This comprehensive picture is generated continuously using the Reco Identities Interaction Graph and empowers security teams to take swift action to effectively prioritize their most critical points of risk.”
“We serve industry leaders in the financial services, healthcare, banking, telecom, consumer products, real estate, manufacturing, retail, and cybersecurity sectors.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Reco from other methods and solutions? Klein affirmed:
“Many organizations attempt to secure new SaaS tools with techniques that were developed for legacy on-premise systems – this restricts collaboration and misses a broad range of security events. It is our belief that only by understanding the complete business context of an interaction can security analysts identify and interpret potential threats, and also determine the best and most efficient way to respond.”
“Reco combines multiple SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) capabilities into one platform to give security teams full visibility into their SaaS security – including managed SaaS applications, third-party applications, and shadow applications – to identify suspicious behavior in both human and machine interactions. Our AI-powered solution is revolutionizing SaaS security with an identity-first approach to SSPM.”
Funding
After asking Klein about the company’s funding information, he revealed:
“Reco is backed by top-tier investors, including Insight Partners, Zeev Ventures, BoldStart Ventures, Angular Ventures, Jibe Ventures, CrewCapital, and Cyber Club London.”
Customer Success Stories
What are some specific customer success stories? Klein highlighted:
“SolarEdge, a global leader in solar power solutions, leveraged Reco to protect its SaaS environment and enhance productivity across its more than 30 global offices. Reco enabled Solaredge to classify sensitive data within its SaaS tools, tailoring the classification to its specific organizational needs. With Reco’s implementation of classifiers, sensitive files were automatically tagged in the native Microsoft 365 environment, allowing SolarEdge to enforce control and policies effectively.”
“Reco brought substantial improvements to SolarEdge’s security posture, productivity, and data protection efforts. By significantly reducing false positives and providing clear and actionable alerts on discovered sensitive data, Reco saved over 50% of the team’s time, enabling them to focus on more critical tasks. Reco’s AI-based solution provided the missing context to understand and take prompt and accurate actions. Solaredge experienced a drastic reduction in the number of alerts, from thousands per week to only 5-6, streamlining its security operations.”
Evolution of Recos’ Technology
How has Recos technology evolved since launching in 2020? Klein noted:
“Since launching in 2020, Reco has evolved from a unified SaaS data security solution to a full SSPM solution. With the rapid adoption of SaaS applications, it has become critical for organizations to move beyond traditional cybersecurity methods and gain visibility into shared information. Legacy tools like data loss prevention often fall short in the SaaS world, overwhelming security teams and hindering business operations. Today, Reco is redefining the way enterprises secure their SaaS environment by taking an identity-centric approach to SSPM that continuously discovers every application and identity, controls access, and seamlessly prioritizes actions to reduce the risk of data exposure.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of Reco’s most significant milestones? Klein highlighted:
“In June 2022, Reco raised a $30 million Series A round to help organizations to collaborate securely using our context-based AI relationship map.”
“In May 2023, we achieved SOC 2 compliance. This voluntary compliance standard is aimed at SaaS companies that store customer data in the cloud. It specifies how an organization should manage customer data. Additionally, in 2023, we hired a US-based GTM team. This has been instrumental in helping us to build awareness, increase visibility, and put our technology into the hands of users.”
“At the end of 2023, we launched the Reco App Factory, which has been embraced by the industry. The technology helps users to develop a new SaaS application integration in a matter of days.”
In May of 2024, we hired our first internal CISO, who was formerly the Deputy CISO at AWS.
“Additionally, we are very proud to have recently picked up two patents for our AI-based security technology. One is for systems and methods for using interaction weight when securing files and records. The other pertains to a business process as the basis for security operations.”
Future Goals
What is Reco’s biggest goal? Klein concluded:
“Our overall goal is to offer the industry the absolute best product that helps organizations easily secure their SaaS applications so they can be more efficient and productive.”
