Stellar Cyber provides an AI-driven, Open XDR security operations platform that unifies tools like SIEM and NDR to help lean security teams visualize, detect, and automatically respond to threats across IT, cloud, and OT environments. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Stellar Cyber founder and CTO Aimei Wei to learn more.
Aimei Wei’s Background
Could you tell me more about your background? Wei said:
“I’m the founder and Chief Technology Officer of Stellar Cyber, a leading cybersecurity technology company that helps small and medium enterprises harness the power of AI to strengthen their security operations and protect against cyber threats.”
“I started my career more than 30 years ago as a software developer for various IT vendors, focused specifically on network switching and engineering. As IT infrastructure evolved over the years, I’ve helped some of the top IT software and service providers innovate their network management products to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving technology landscape.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Wei shared:
“During my career journey specializing in network engineering, I noticed that IT networks carried a tremendous amount of information as devices, machines, identities and services were constantly in communication protocols together. This created a ripe landscape for cyber attacks, because there’s valuable information and credentials that can be easily exploited.”
“The IT environment is ever evolving and more exposed than ever before. The days of relying solely on a firewall to protect a corporate network are gone thanks to cloud computing and distributed networks. Companies cannot rely on a single tool to protect against modern cyber attacks. Breaches are no longer fully preventable, as it’s a matter of when and not if, and companies need to have the right visibility into their network to see past their blindspots that attackers may try to exploit.”
“That’s why I founded Aella Data in 2015, which we rebranded to Stellar Cyber in 2017, to address these security concerns for smaller, mid-market businesses who didn’t have the same resources as their enterprise peers to address the onslaught of cyber attacks impacting their organizations. Stellar Cyber was built around a singular platform, using sensors I developed from my days in networking engineering, that leverage multi-layer AI and machine learning to help lean, strained security teams connect the dots within their networks gaining visibility into what’s happening, correlate behaviors with intelligence to determine if they are malicious, and act quickly to neutralize threats.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Wei reflected:
“I have a lot of happy memories over the years, especially building such an incredible team of passionate, brilliant people who are truly aligned on our company’s mission to help customers illuminate the darkest corners of their cybersecurity.”
“I also am proud of the work we have done with our partners in the managed security service partner (MSSP) community. I remember one of the first MSSP organizations who decided to take a chance working with us after being disappointed with similar cybersecurity tools at that time, perhaps about six years ago. After they deployed our platform to their customers, they saw a record number of growth at scale because of how easy our product was to use and license. Just last year, they were listed as a Top 250 MSSP by MSSP Alert, which made me proud to think that we played a critical role in helping them achieve such well deserved success. To me, that’s true partnership and one of the best parts of working at Stellar Cyber.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Wei explained:
“Our core product is our open extended detection and response (Open XDR) platform, which provides customers a host of capabilities to strengthen their visibility, detection, correlation and response for today’s most complex cyberattacks.”
“Features include network detection and response (NDR), next generation security information and event management (SIEM), real-time alerts and an open API that allows integration with nearly every security tool on the market. All of this is powered by a proprietary, multi-layer AI and machine learning to help companies automate their security operations to reduce resource strain without compromising their overall security. We also designed our product for ease of use and ease of scale, which makes it a favorite among our MSSP partners.”
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any challenges in your sector of work recently? Wei acknowledged:
“As the cybersecurity market continues to evolve, there’s a messaging gap from security vendors that are confusing customers, specifically relating to industry terminology and acronyms like Open XDR. There isn’t always a standard, centralized definition for security terms, especially as those terms evolve or change as the threat landscape changes.”
“One way that we are combating that challenge is through continued education of our value proposition and our definition of these terminologies, which helps define the value of our platform and better communicate how we solve security problems for our customers. We do this through a series of education webinars, newsletters, direct customer conversations, thought leadership content like blogs, press interviews and demonstrations at events. We are evangelizing both the mission of the business and the definition of Open XDR in a way that is really resonating with our customers and our partners.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Wei noted:
“Our vision today is the same as it was in 2017 when we launched the first version of our platform to market: provide unmatched visibility, correlation, and response for mid-market businesses that lack the resources of their enterprise peers to combat today’s attacks.”
“With that said, we are constantly improving our product’s capabilities leveraging the latest software development practices, best in class technologies, and listening intently to our customers and partners to understand what features they need to be successful. For example, we were an early adopter of AI and machine learning, introducing those functionalities in the earliest stages of our product, and since then have developed multi-layer AI, incorporating the latest large language models to stay ahead of technology trends.”
“We also improve our product through inorganic growth, acquiring a security automation platform in 2024 to add hyperautomation capabilities to our offering.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Wei cited:
“Since 2017, we’ve had significant growth in our product capabilities, offering both an on-premises and SaaS cloud offering, and rolled out a host of new AI-powered features to help customers stay ahead of today’s advanced threats.”
“We have also grown significantly as a business. We have approximately 160 full time employees world-wide and our platform is in use at more than 10,000 organizations. We partner with 77 of the top 250 MSSPs in the world that leverage our Open XDR platform to deliver cybersecurity services to their customers.”
Customer Success Stories
Can you share any specific customer success stories? Wei highlighted:
“Legacy Data Access (LDA) is a small, healthcare IT consultancy based in Charlotte, North Carolina with less than 50 employees that provides healthcare data integration services for more than 80 health systems in the United States, including academic institutions, hospitals and medical centers. Each year, healthcare data becomes more and more of a target by malicious actors because of the highly valuable clinical information that resides within that healthcare data, in high demand by malicious actors.”
“As LDA began going through a digital transformation journey shifting its infrastructure into Oracle cloud environments, they realized they had critical cybersecurity blind spots during this digital transformation that posed serious security risks for themselves and their customers. LDA needed to partner with a cybersecurity platform that seamlessly integrated with their new Oracle cloud infrastructure. Stellar Cyber’s platform is easily integrated into the Oracle cloud environment thanks to its open integration capabilities with ease to provide unmatched security visibility, detection and response capabilities. Stellar Cyber also leveraged its ongoing business partnership with Oracle, enabling LDA to easily and swiftly purchase the platform via the Oracle marketplace.”
“This presented both a business win and a technical win for the customer, who still uses Stellar Cyber’s Open XDR platform to keep their organization secure to this day. More information can be found here: https://stellarcyber.ai/company/customer-testimonials/.”
Funding/Revenue
Are you able to discuss funding and/or revenue metrics? Wei revealed:
“Since our founding, we have raised over $100 million in funding and are moving fast towards our long-term revenue target of $100 million ARR.”
Total Addressable Market (TAM)
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Wei assessed:
“The global XDR market is valued at approximately $754.8 million. Projections indicate significant growth, with expectations to reach $3.41 billion by 2030. (Source)
“The global SIEM market was valued at approximately $3.95 billion. Forecasts predict growth to $11.62 billion by 2030. (Source)
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Wei affirmed:
“We are focused on mid-market businesses, providing exceptional value across our NG SIEM, NDR and AI capabilities with a platform that is truly open, unified and integrated with every major security tool on the market. This creates exceptional value for the mid-market because they are able to unlock enterprise class cybersecurity protection while adding efficiency and scale to their security operations at a licensing model that aligns with their limited budgets.”
“Our simple, easy to configure licensing model for both MSSPs and direct customers allows our product to be deployed quickly and efficiently creating excellent time-to-value for customers. We are also on the forefront of today’s technology trends with our use of multi-layer AI to help customers achieve a more effective, efficient and autonomous security operations center (SOC).”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Wei concluded:
“Our future vision is to help the mid-market achieve an autonomous SOC with the resources they’re allotted, ensuring that nobody is left behind in the race towards human-augmented autonomy in cybersecurity.”
