Zenity is the first security governance platform for low-code/no-code and Generative AI development. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Zenity founders Ben Kliger and Michael Bargury to learn more about the company.
Background Of Ben Kliger And Michael Bargury
Kliger and Bargury met at Microsoft, where we each had leadership roles in the cloud cyber security organization after serving in elite Israeli intelligence units.
Formation Of Zenity
How did the idea for the company come together? Kliger and Bargury shared:
“At Microsoft, we saw firsthand the challenges of organizations dealing with security and governance with citizen development. Unfortunately, we saw the consequences of allowing all business users to create powerful business apps and automation and how they introduced security risks, gaps in business continuity, and non-compliance. However, the consequences of not allowing citizen development put a stranglehold on the organization’s growth and business success.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Kliger and Bargury reflected:
“One of the most cherished memories during my time at this company revolves around the profound significance of our team. We believe that our company is nothing without its people, and every new member brings a unique vitality that propels us forward. There’s an undeniable thrill in welcoming fresh faces, each with their own set of skills and perspectives, into our ranks.
On the product / commercial side, a particularly exhilarating moment etched in my memory was when a customer not only acknowledged the efficacy of our solution but expressed a genuine willingness to invest in it.
It was a testament to the fact that we’re not only solving a problem but that we are doing so in a way that positively impacts and resonates with our customers. This validation was a true milestone for us, affirming that we were not only on the right track in the early stages but also reaffirming our strong belief that we are creating something that adds significant value to the lives of our users.
In the whirlwind of startup life, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day challenges and milestones. Yet, moments like these serve as powerful reminders of why we embarked on this journey in the first place. It rekindles the excitement and passion that fueled our initial steps and reaffirms our belief in the transformative potential of our work. This memory remains a source of inspiration, a testament to the dedication of our team, and a beacon guiding us towards an even brighter future.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Kliger and Bargury explained:
“The Zenity platform is built from the ground up with security in mind and supports our customers through three pillars of: Visibility, Risk Assessment, and Governance.
The platform brings application-security expertise and controls to the modern way of developing applications. However, this new paradigm of application development renders traditional, code-based AppSec tools less relevant because, by definition, citizen development minimizes and obfuscates code as much as possible. Zenity provides customers with application security posture management, application development governance, vulnerability scanning, sensitive data and secrets scanning, flow analysis, and detection and response to empower security teams to keep up with the growing demand to unleash citizen development via a variety of low-code/no-code development platforms (i.e. Microsoft Power Platform, Salesforce, ServiceNow, OutSystems, Appian, UiPath, etc) We also recently introduced support for Microsoft Copilot Studio, which allows business users of all technical backgrounds to build their own AI Copilots and bots, something that we see as the next natural phase of citizen development being done on a variety of low-code/no-code platforms.”
Challenges Faced
After asking Kliger and Bargury about the challenges faced in their field of work, they acknowledged:
“We are scaling at a very healthy clip, but the largest bottleneck we find is largely due to our stringent requirements for bringing in employees who are up to our high standards, which can make it a long process to bring in people at the right pace.”
Evolution Of Zenity’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Kliger and Bargury noted:
“Our technology has evolved as the use cases have gotten clearer and clearer. This focus comes from not only rigorous product research and development but also our experience working closely with some of the most innovative and sophisticated organizations in the world, including several Fortune 100 companies that give us candid and relevant feedback that we can use to develop and innovate.
To illustrate our constant innovation, in just the last quarter alone, we have launched a dedicated SBOM for citizen development and the Zenity Attack Graph, which sheds light on the relationships that applications developed using low-code/no-code platforms have with supporting objects like data connections, frontend components (i.e. PCFs or customer connectors), and others to best illustrate and prioritize the risk. We also released the aforementioned security and governance support for Microsoft Copilot Studio, PowerBI, and more.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Kliger and Bargury cited:
“We have had many significant milestones here at Zenity, including the general availability of our product in 2022, raising our seed round in November of 2021 (led by Vertex Ventures and UpWest), and our recent A round closure (led by Intel Capital) and announcement in September of this year.
While significant events, these milestones are good markers for all that we have accomplished, including growing our team in both Israel and the United States, as well as reaching product-market fit and generating significant revenue by working with and supporting many global Fortune 500 companies in various industries (financial services, healthcare, technology, manufacturing, etc.).”
Customer Success Stories
Upon asking Kliger and Bargury about customer success stories, they highlighted:
“While several of our largest customers are under non-disclosures, we can share case studies from Varonis and Telit, as well as supporting Clalit and Payoneer with securely unleashing citizen development through Zenity.”
Funding/Revenue
After asking Kliger and Bargury about the company’s funding and revenue information, they revealed:
“At this time we are not able to disclose or discuss revenue, but we did recently announce the closure of our Series A round of fundraising for a total of $16.5 million, raising our total amount of funding to over $22 million.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Kliger and Bargury assessed:
“Gartner forecasts the low-code/no-code development TAM to be $12.3 billion, with the cybersecurity component of that TAM being very significant as it should operate alongside the growth of the TAM. We also expect this market to rise dramatically with the rise and adoption of Generative AI, specifically Gen AI copilots that enable even faster development and require even less code for business users to build powerful business apps, automation, bots, and more.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Kliger and Bargury affirmed:
“As a result of having been in this space of securing and governing citizen development for several years now, we have been able to learn a lot from the market, analysts, partners, and customers about what the problems are, what the desired solutions look like, and everything in between.
We have gained a tremendous amount of insights, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and have incorporated this feedback into delivering the most robust and scalable solution to meet our customers where they are. By working with customers that already have hundreds of thousands, and in some cases, millions of apps and automation built by citizen developers, we have access to huge swaths of data and insights that we can apply to research and development to spur current and future innovation for years to come.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Kliger and Bargury concluded:
“The key to our company is our people. Aside from hitting natural growth goals that come with any round of funding, our top priority is growing the team to meet our scale but doing so responsibly. In addition to hiring and growing our team, we have plans to further strengthen ourselves as thought leaders in the space by investing heavily in security and threat research and bringing this knowledge to the market.”
