Velotix is a company that offers a unique AI-driven data protection and access permissions platform that removes risk, automates policy management at scale, and provides access to data. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Velotix CEO and co-founder Dr. Adi Hod to learn more.
Dr. Hod’s Background
Dr. Hod has over 20 years of experience planning and developing optimization solutions for global banking and healthcare organizations.
“I hold a BSc, MSc in engineering from the Technion, an Executive MBA from MIT, and a PhD from Haifa and Philadelphia University. My specialty is researching ways to leverage AI for better business outcomes,” said Dr. Hod.
Formation Of Velotix
How did the idea for Velotix come together? “Over a 10 am cup of coffee with an executive of a multinational European bank who complained that today it’s impossible to keep track of which data is available, where it’s located, and who should be granted access. He explained that the bank was spending huge amounts of money to store valuable data for business intelligence, but it was out of reach from the people who needed it most due to inflexible, manually intensive methods of access control. And I thought- Why spend so much money collecting something and then hide it?” Dr. Hod reflected.
Favorite Memory
What has been Dr. Hod’s favorite memory working for Velotix so far?
“It’s hard to say because every day is different. There isn’t one favorite memory, and it’s a process of seeing the company evolve. It’s witnessing the company mature step by step; our first term sheet, setting up the R&D lab, our first customer,” Dr. Hod observed. “But the most gratifying moment for me was when we had our first company event, and we celebrated all our successes together as a team.”
Challenges Faced
What are some challenges Dr. Hod faced in building the company and has the current macroeconomic climate affected the company? “We are less concerned about the current climate because there will always be a market need for our product since the flow of data and cyberattacks don’t stop when the economy is in a slump. Data is an asset in an organization that needs to be protected and controlled, and data security is always on the executive agenda,” Dr. Hod acknowledged.
Core Products
What are Velotix’s core products and features?
“We provide policy-based access control (PBAC) that dynamically determines access privileges based on policies and rules versus role-based access control (RBAC),” Dr. Hod explained. “With today’s data tsunami, highly dynamic regulatory environment, flexible employee roles, and the importance of data for business intelligence, enterprises need automation to provide maximum data utilization with minimum risk. We also provide an automatic policy handbook for a single source of truth and a tiered approach for automated data governance so companies can make the minimum investment while their data governance function matures.”
Evolution Of Velotix’s Technology
How has Velotix’s technology evolved since launching? “We have added additional self-service data access, a fully unified policy catalog across the organization. We are working towards a free text search and securing M2M communications,” Dr. Hod noted.
Significant Milestones
What have been some of Velotix’s most significant milestones? “Completing our first pilot with success with a multinational bank with impressive results was our first taste of success and our designation as a Google technology partner,” Dr. Hod highlighted.
Customer Success Story
When I asked Dr. Hod about customer success stories, he cited the following:
“A multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Germany made an organizational shift to the cloud which resulted in data being stored in over 10,000 data warehouses and data lakes. Thousands of business analysts had to wait up to several months to receive the data due to complicated and highly dynamic security regulations. After installing Velotix, requests for data were fulfilled in minutes instead of weeks.”
“Liquid Group, the fastest growing digital payment company in APAC based in Singapore, uses Velotix for automated data access governance including the generation of a unified data catalog and automated access to personal financial data.”
Funding/Revenue
When I asked Dr. Hod about funding and revenue, he pointed out: “We are backed by 3 US VCs with notable private investors in Israel and Luxembourg. We are generating revenue in our third year which is highly unusual for our industry.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is Velotix pursuing? “We estimate our addressable market at approximately $15 billion which is based on current estimates of the data governance and security policy management markets,” Dr. Hod assessed.
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Velotix from its competition? “Our differentiators include – our policy-based access control (PBAC), automatic policy handbook, and three-tiered approach for right-sized data governance,” Dr. Hod affirmed.
Future Company Goals
What are some of Velotix’s future company goals? “We have a vision of a self-service environment, where users can ask questions in free text and receive all the data they need. In addition, the system should coach the user by recommending other types of data, and angles of analysis to assist in the decision-making process. All data should be leveraged but not misused,” Dr. Hod concluded.
