Viakoo is a leader in automated cyber hygiene and service assurance for unmanaged and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Viakoo CEO and co-founder Bud Broomhead to learn more about the company.
Bud Broomhead’s Background
What is Broomhead’s background? Broomhead said:
“As founder and CEO, I brought to Viakoo experience in growing early-stage companies as well as “big company” experience from my time at Sun Microsystems. I’ve always bought into the definition of a startup as a temporary organization in search of a repeatable and scalable business model. That’s given me impetus to always be looking for ways to improve and innovate to grow the business into that sustainable business engine, which is what I’m doing now at Viakoo as well as what I’ve done across my career.”
Formation Of Viakoo
How did the idea for the company come together? Broomhead shared:
“Our founding team came from a data storage systems manufacturer for physical security. For many reasons that had nothing to do with that company’s products, their customers found that video evidence was not getting stored properly, or access control systems were going offline without anyone knowing. That gave us the insight that customers had a bigger problem – knowing that their IoT systems were working properly (service assurance), and over time that naturally evolved into Viakoo helping customers ensure their IoT systems were being maintained for cyber hygiene (firmware, passwords, and certificates).”
Favorite Memory
What has been Broomhead’s favorite memory working for the company so far? Broomhead shared:
“Sitting down for breakfast ahead of a conference in Las Vegas, and overhearing at the next table a couple of people debating about an issue that just came up with their physical security system. One of them, pointing excitedly at their phone, said, ‘I’ve got all the information right here. Thanks to Viakoo, the issue is solved, we’re in control, and we’re secure.’ That says it all.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges has Broomhead faced in building the company? Broomhead acknowledged:
“Like all innovative companies we face the typical challenges around funding, hiring, and building a sales channel. Where we’ve had advantages in all three are that our core team has built companies before and knows what’s needed to address those challenges. We have incredibly low employee turnover, a growing security business entirely channel-based, with very low customer churn. That’s allowed us to remain engineering-focused and very close to our customers in developing both product enhancements and new products.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Broomhead explained:
“We do three things, all focused on IoT device and application management for security. We do application-based discovery through our Direct Query Manager product, which gives context to how IoT devices and the applications running them work together. This adds unique data to our network-based discovery partners and helps set up zero-trust network segments. Second, we automate across fleets of devices key cyber hygiene requirements, such as updating firmware, rotating passwords, and managing certificates. The third area is service assurance, including lifecycle management, so that the devices you’re focused on keeping secure are known to be working properly and still capable of receiving firmware updates. Across all these areas we provide reports and historical data, which directly helps lower the time and cost to achieve compliance and pass audits.”
Evolution Of Viakoo’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Broomhead noted:
“Just like the problems in IoT security itself, our company always has and always will be evolving and innovating our technology solutions. Our technology evolution is driven by two factors; solving the biggest security issues facing our customers (including many Fortune 1000 organizations), and finding new ways to expand our solution capabilities. We initially were focused on strictly service assurance of IoT systems, but both because of making that product simply better (such as our patent around reaching across network segments to trigger local action) and customer needs for cyber hygiene (which our overall product architecture turned out to be ideal for), we have evolved our solution offering and technology development around what is needed for an IoT security management platform.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Broomhead cited:
“Being the first in our chosen markets – first to offer IoT service assurance, first to automate firmware updates, password rotations, and manage certificates. We also have achieved significant milestones in funding, including corporate investment from Stanley Black and Decker and our A round led by Shasta Ventures. Getting our first $1 million per year annual recurring revenue customer was also a key milestone in terms of overall market validation. Forming a broad set of technology alliances with system manufacturers, solution partners, managed service providers, and security integrators is another type of milestone.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Broomhead about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“We’re used in a wide range of verticals, but this story speaks volumes to how we bring value to organizations of all sizes. I can’t name the city, but it’s a decent-sized suburb in the San Francisco Bay Area that had installed 75 cameras around the downtown area because of crime issues. The IT security director responsible for the camera system realized they needed twice as many cameras (150), but the city manager flat out told them ‘you get no more budget because the police chief tells me you can’t manage the system you’ve got now – video is missing 1/3 of the time, and too often the camera goes offline without anyone knowing for days.’ They installed Viakoo and had 6 months of 100% perfect operations with reports on their system status emailed around on a weekly basis. The best part ended up being that the police chief and IT director jointly went and got the budget to expand the system to 150 cameras, making the downtown a safer place for all.”
Funding
After asking Broomhead about the company’s funding and revenue information, he revealed:
“As a privately held company, we don’t go into details, but I would point to our Series A funding in 2021 by Shasta Ventures as a major validation of our company prospects, as well as expanding sales relationships of our managed services solution with partners including Securitas Technology and Presidio.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Broomhead assessed:
“We see the IoT security market as over $8 billion currently and growing 20% annually over the next 5 years.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Broomhead affirmed:
“Our product technology has been proven in over 2 billion hours of production usage across a wide range of verticals. We’re fortunate to have built our technology from the ground up for IoT, and have a unique appreciation for how IoT security is all about understanding the context that the devices and applications exist in. We have a couple of very good competitors, but our depth of in-market experience, partnerships, and key IoT security patents really set us apart in a massive way from them.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Broomhead pointed out:
“We can see the IoT security market exploding over the next few years, so we’ll be focused on building the company to meet that demand with both new products and extensions of our current products.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics to discuss? Broomhead concluded:
“In just a few short years we’ve gone from rarely hearing about IoT cyber breaches to now hearing weekly or daily stories about hacked cameras, cars, planes, slot machines, thermometers, water chemical processing, pipelines – the list is becoming as vast and endless as the IoT landscape itself is. What drives the urgency of our business is that trend, and ensuring that the many organizations that use IoT devices to gain their business value are resilient and secure from increasing IoT attacks.”
