Torq Secures $70 Million in Funding to Advance AI-Driven Cybersecurity Automation

Security automation platform provider Torq raises $70M to boost expansion and AI integration - SiliconANGLE

Security automation platform provider Torq raises $70M to boost expansion and AI integration Hyperautomation platform security company Torq Ltd. today announced that it has raised $70 million in new funding to increase expansion across Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region and devote more resources to generative artificial intelligence enhancements. Founded in 2020, Torq offers a hyperautomation platform for security and operations teams that connects security infrastructure and communications tools to automate workflows across systems. By connecting the entire security infrastructure stack, Torq allows organizations to remediate security events and orchestrate complex security processes at large scale. The company's no-code hyperautomation platform is designed specifically for security teams. It offers key features such as seamless integration and automation across cloud, on-premise and hybrid environments. Rounding out the buzzwords, Torq's platform supports natural language, no-code, low-code and full-code development for building automations and is built on a cloud-native, multitenant architecture with zero-trust security. The Series C round was led by Evolution Equity Partners, with Bessemer Venture Partners LP, Notable Capital, Greenfield Partners and Strait Capital Company Ltd. also participating. Including the new funding, Torq has raised $192 million to date, including rounds of $50 million in December 2021 and $42 million in January. Along with the funding, Torq also revealed that it more than tripled its revenue and customer growth for the second year in a row. The company credits its recent momentum to the elevating enterprise adoption of its Torq HyperSOC offering announced in April. Torq HyperSOC automates, manages and monitors critical security operation center responses using natural language processing to initiate and accelerate security event investigation, triage and remediation. The result, the company claims, is case management capabilities that are easy to use and automate complex processes. The company also now counts as customers an impressive list of companies, including Procter & Gamble Co., PepsiCo Inc., Siemens AG, Carvana Co., Check Point Security Technologies Ltd., Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., Rivian Automotive Inc., SentinelOne Inc. and Wiz Inc. "With Torq, we can react automatically to problems before they become security incidents," said Check Point Chief Information Officer Jonathan Fischbein. "It's a cat-and-mouse game. And, with Torq, we can catch the mouse more easily."

Torq, which automates cybersecurity workflows, raises $70M in new capital | TechCrunch

As the volume of cyberattacks grows, there's increasing interest from the corporate sector in tech to help automate responses to breaches. Per a 2023 survey from analytics firm Devo, 80% of security leaders expected expanded investments in security automation technology this year; most cited the tech's potential to support cyber threat mitigation. Projections say that the market for security automation could be worth $26.6 billion by 2032. One vendor that's experienced outsized success is Torq, which applies AI to abstract away repetitive, onerous security-related tasks. On the back of a customer base that includes Procter & Gamble, Chipotle, PepsiCo, and Wiz, Torq's annual recurring revenue (ARR) has eclipsed $24 million, CEO Ofer Smadari tells TechCrunch. "We have tripled revenue across two consecutive years, and are projecting $100 million ARR by fiscal year 2026," he said. "We have more than 150 direct enterprise customers, as well as dozens of partners that are providing services to nearly 900 enterprises worldwide based on our platform." This traction likely helped Torq to close a $70 million Series C funding round earlier in September. Led by Evolution Equity Partners, the round brings Torq's total raised to $192 million. Favorable market conditions probably helped, too. In Q2 2024, VCs funneled $4.4 billion into cybersecurity firms, according to Crunchbase, marking the strongest funding quarter for the sector since 2022. Funding in Q2 was up 144% year-over-year and 63% from Q1, while dealmaking across the two quarters nearly doubled versus in the first half of 2023. "Growing in a responsible manner results in internal efficiencies that are already in place in various important programs powering our operations, from R&D through go-to-market," Smadari said. "We have built our company in a very fiscally responsible way." Smadari started Torq with Leonid Belkind and Eldad Livni in 2020. Smadari previously founded Luminate, a zero trust platform that Symantec acquired in 2019. Belkind and Livni were at Check Point, where they designed network cybersecurity tools, prior to joining Torq. The trio worked together at Symantec until around December 2019, when they left to pursue Torq. Torq's platform today lets IT teams create automated security workflows that integrate with their company's existing infrastructure. Torq offers a service that employs AI -- specifically large language models along the lines of OpenAI's ChatGPT -- to answer questions about SOC playbooks, the guides that help cybersecurity analysts navigate incidents. "By connecting to the security infrastructure stack, Torq empowers organizations to remediate security events and orchestrate security processes at scale," Smadari said. "We aim to augment human security analysts with AI-driven capabilities, allowing them to focus on higher tiers of investigation while leaving more repetitive triage, investigation and response activities to AI." One would hope Torq's AI doesn't hallucinate often, or introduce biases that end up negatively influencing a security decision. Where it concerns security, wrong decisions can be far-reaching and ruinous. Asked about the challenges with AI today as they relate to security, Smadari admitted that Torq's automation isn't perfect. But he said the company's working to address problems as they crop up. "We are collaborating with a number of companies in the space and building risk and attack surface models, and subjecting our applications to various testing techniques," Smadari added. Much of the new cash from Torq's Series C will be put toward product R&D and customer acquisition, Smadari said. In the next few months, the nearly-200-staffer, Portland-based Torq will beef up its go-to-market teams with a focus on the U.S., Europe, and Asia. "During the past years, cybersecurity has proven itself to be one of the most resilient industries during conditions of economic uncertainty," Smadari said. "Our company growth, and with it, the growth of our expenses, have been tightly coupled from the very beginning to revenue and customer growth." Bessemer Venture Partners, Notable Capital, Greenfield Partners, and Strait Capital also participated in Torq's Series C.

Torq Raises $70 Million to Expand AI-First Cybersecurity Hyperautomation Solutions | PYMNTS.com

Torq has raised $70 million in a Series C funding round to expand its artificial intelligence (AI)-first cybersecurity hyperautomation solutions. The company will use the new funding to add generative AI enhancements, hire additional talent and accelerate its expansion across the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia-Pacific (APAC) regions, Torq said in a Tuesday (Sept. 24) press release. "Torq has blown past all the frustrating, manual limitations of legacy [security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR)] that leave significant holes in the security perimeter," Ofer Smadari, CEO and co-founder of Torq, said in the release. "Torq plugs all those holes by delivering a new layer of AI-driven protection, all while making all of security operations more productive than ever." The company's Torq HyperSOC is a purpose-built solution that uses the AI-driven Torq Hyperautomation platform to automate, manage and monitor critical security operations center (SOC) responses, according to the release. By initiating and accelerating security event investigation, triage and remediation, delivering case management capabilities and automating complex processes, Torq HyperSOC allows analysts to focus on strategic security initiatives, per the release. Torq Hyperautomation and Torque HyperSOC deliver "deep value" for security operations teams worldwide, Richard Seewald, founder and managing partner of Evolution Equity Partners, which led Torq's latest funding round, said in the release. "It's now no longer a question of if, but when every enterprise will adopt AI-driven hyperautomation," Seewald said. With commerce increasingly happening online and payment systems becoming more intertwined with complex technologies, cybersecurity has never been more critical, PYMNTS reported Sept. 13. News came Sept. 12 that Mastercard spent $2.65 billion to acquire threat intelligence company Recorded Future, saying the deal "bolsters the insights and intelligence used to secure today's digital economy -- in the payments ecosystem and beyond." In August, Kiteworks secured a $456 million growth equity investment to strengthen its market position in secure data transfer and collaboration, noting that there is an expanding cybersecurity risk as more cybercriminals target sensitive content from supply chains and other ecosystem. In January, cloud-native security provider Aqua Security secured $60 million in funding in an extension of its Series E round. The company said that since its founding eight years earlier, its solutions had been adopted by more than 500 enterprise companies worldwide, including 40% of the Fortune 100 companies.

Torq Announces $70M Series C to Double Down on Generative AI for Security Operations Platform, Bringing Total 2024 Funding to $112M

Torq Achieves 3X+ Revenue and Fortune 500 Customer Growth for the Second Year in a Row, With $100M 2026 ARR Target, As Torq HyperSOC and Torq Hyperautomation Achieve Global Enterprise Penetration NEW YORK-(BUSINESS WIRE)-September 24, 2024- Torq, the AI-first security hyperautomation leader, today announced the closing of its $70M Series C funding round, led by Evolution Equity Partners, with Bessemer Venture Partners, Notable Capital, Greenfield Partners, and Strait Capital participating. Combined with Torq's expanded Series B in January, Torq has raised a total of $112m in 2024, bringing the company's funding since its 2020 inception to $192M. It also has also established an aggressive 2026 ARR target of $100M. Torq will use the new round to increase expansion across EMEA and APAC, hire additional world class engineering, R&D, and sales talent, and double down on devoting more resources to deliver cutting-edge generative AI enhancements. In addition, Torq announced that it more than tripled its revenue and customer growth for the second year in a row. Torq's momentum reflects the elevating enterprise adoption of the recently-announced Torq HyperSOC, a purpose-built solution that harnesses the power of the AI-driven Torq Hyperautomation Platform to automate, manage, and monitor critical SOC responses at machine speed. It uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to initiate and accelerate security event investigation, triage, and remediation at scale, deliver comprehensive case management capabilities with unprecedented ease, and automate complex processes. Torq HyperSOC saves analysts from alert fatigue and job burnout so they can focus on strategic security initiatives and innovation. Rapid Global Enterprise Adoption Torq's customer base includes major multinational enterprise customers, including Abnormal Security, Armis, Blackstone, Carvana, Check Point Security, Chipotle, Deepwatch, Lemonade, Lennar, Nubank, Rivian, SentinelOne, Telefonica, Wiz, and ZoomInfo, as well as Fortune 100 consumer packaged goods, fashion, financial, hospitality, and sports apparel companies. "Our Series C round underlines the fact that Torq customers, partners, and employees have combined into one of the most powerful, influential, and fastest-growing ecosystems in all of cybersecurity," said Ofer Smadari, CEO and co-founder, Torq. "We've rewritten the rules of the industry with Torq Hyperautomation and Torq HyperSOC, and our momentum reflects that shift. Torq has blown past all the frustrating, manual limitations of legacy SOAR that leave significant holes in the security perimeter. Torq plugs all those holes by delivering a new layer of AI-driven protection, all while making all of security operations more productive than ever." "Today, Torq HyperSOC investigates, triages, and remediates many of Check Point's internal security alerts without any human intervention," said Jonathan Fischbein CISO, Check Point. "If an alert meets certain parameters based on organizational security policies, the platform takes relevant predefined steps, such as initiating an MFA challenge or locking out a suspicious user. We can react automatically to problems before they become security incidents." "The incredible growth, customer traction, and industry momentum Torq Hyperautomation and Torq HyperSOC are experiencing showcases how Torq is dramatically transforming cybersecurity for the better," said Richard Seewald, Founder and Managing Partner, Evolution Equity Partners. "Evolution is incredibly proud to back Torq as it continues to deliver such deep value for security operations teams worldwide. It's now no longer a question of if, but when every enterprise will adopt AI-driven hyperautomation." Torq's customer base also continues to rapidly grow due to the success of the Torq Partner Acceleration Program, which includes many of the world's leading channel and security vendors. Torq tech alliance partners include Abnormal Security, Check Point, CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Snyk, and Wiz. Its reseller and VAR ecosystem includes GuidePoint Security, Optiv, Stratascale, and Trace3. "Torq is a rising star in cybersecurity," said Oren Yunger, Managing Partner, Notable Capital. "Torq HyperSOC's advanced AI capabilities are having a dramatic, positive impact on security operations teams worldwide by making them vastly more efficient and resilient than ever. Torq represents the next-generation of security operations and Notable Capital is certain the future is phenomenally bright for the company." Key Analysts Unanimously Validate Torq Hyperautomation Analysts including Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and GigaOm all covered Torq Hyperautomation during 2024, with unanimous perspectives on the positive impact it's making for customers. "Every day, IDC is engaged with SOC professionals who communicate the existential challenges they're facing, both in terms of keeping up with ever-escalating threat complexity and volume, and the incredible burden that places on the shoulders of their teams," said Chris Kissel, Vice President, Security & Trust Products, IDC Research. "Torq is the first solution we've seen that effectively enables SOC professionals to mitigate issues including alert fatigue, false positives, staff burnout, and attrition. We are also impressed by how its AI augmentation capabilities empower these staff members to be much more proactive about fortifying the security perimeter." "Torq offers an extensive feature set, as reflected in its high scores across most of the key criteria, including case management, and collaboration, automated alert prioritization, triage and curation, autonomous operations, and validation and red teaming, and has acquired an impressive portfolio of customers," said GigaOm in a 2024 Radar Report. Torq is transforming cybersecurity with its AI-first enterprise-grade hyperautomation platform. By connecting the entire security infrastructure stack, Torq empowers organizations to instantly and precisely remediate security events, and orchestrate complex security processes at scale. Fortune 500 enterprises, including the world's biggest financial, technology, consumer packaged goods, fashion, hospitality, and sports apparel companies are experiencing extraordinary outcomes with Torq. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240924238096/en/

Israeli Cyber Startup Torq Raises $70 Million in Latest Funding Round

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli cyber startup Torq said on Tuesday it raised $70 million in its second private funding round this year and targeted $100 million in annual recurring revenue by 2026. Torq, which uses artificial intelligence to provide security protection for companies, has now raised $112 million in 2024 and $192 million since its inception in 2020. Torq said it planned to use the new funds to expand further across the EMEA and APAC regions, hire more engineers and other employees, and devote more resources to generative AI enhancements for its security operations platform. It said it more than tripled its revenue for a second straight year, although it did not specify to how much. Torq said its customer base includes multinationals including Telefonica and ZoomInfo as well as Fortune 100 consumer packaged goods, fashion, financial, hospitality, and sports apparel companies. The latest funding round was led by Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Notable Capital, Greenfield Partners and Strait Capital. (Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Israeli cyber startup Torq raises $70 million in latest funding round

JERUSALEM, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Israeli cyber startup Torq said on Tuesday it raised $70 million in its second private funding round this year and targeted $100 million in annual recurring revenue by 2026. Torq, which uses artificial intelligence to provide security protection for companies, has now raised $112 million in 2024 and $192 million since its inception in 2020. Torq said it planned to use the new funds to expand further across the EMEA and APAC regions, hire more engineers and other employees, and devote more resources to generative AI enhancements for its security operations platform. Advertisement · Scroll to continue It said it more than tripled its revenue for a second straight year, although it did not specify to how much. Torq said its customer base includes multinationals including Telefonica and ZoomInfo as well as Fortune 100 consumer packaged goods, fashion, financial, hospitality, and sports apparel companies. The latest funding round was led by Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Notable Capital, Greenfield Partners and Strait Capital. Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Susan Fenton Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Torq CEO On Raising $70M, GenAI, Channel Expansion Plans

When it comes to the closet competitors of the security hyperautomation startup, 'we are years ahead of them,' Torq CEO Ofer Smadari tells CRN. Torq is planning to deploy its new $70 million funding round -- which is the second major fundraise of the year for the security "hyperautomation" startup -- to advance its AI-powered capabilities while boosting investments into the channel, Co-founder and CEO Ofer Smadari told CRN. On Tuesday, Torq announced raising the Series C funding round led by Evolution Equity Partners, which comes just eight months after the company added $42 million in new funding in January. [Related: 'Hyperautomation' Startup Torq To Power MDR Provider Deepwatch In SecOps Shakeup] The startup also disclosed Tuesday that it's on track to reach $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by the end of 2026. Torq did not disclose its current ARR. Founded in 2020, Torq offers a no-code method for automating security operations activities, which boosts security analyst productivity by completing numerous SecOps tasks faster and more easily, according to the company. A major emphasis for Torq has been around displacing "legacy" providers of SOAR (security orchestration, automation and response) technology, Smadari said. When it comes to "legacy" rivals in the SecOps tools space, "we are years ahead of them" in terms of capabilities, he said. Notably, a number of its customers are other security vendors, including SentinelOne, Wiz and Deepwatch, the company said. In the case of Deepwatch, Torq has provided the backbone infrastructure for the vendor's managed detection and response (MDR) platform since late 2023, Torq executives told CRN previously. As for the new fundraise, Smadari said a major focus for the new capital will be on expanding the startup's push with solution and service provider partners. Many of the largest security-focused solution providers have already become Torq partners, he said. "We are heavily investing in the big ones," Smadari said -- though he noted that the aim over time will be to expand more broadly within the channel to include regional solution providers. Other investors in Torq's Series C funding round included Bessemer Venture Partners, Notable Capital, Greenfield Partners and Strait Capital. The startup has now raised a total of $192 million in funding to date. What follows is an edited and condensed portion of CRN's interview with Smadari. What are the major goals for the new funding? We haven't spent the first dollar from the last round. But things are working really well. We are getting Fortune 50, Fortune 100 customers out of the legacy [vendors]. They are moving to our platform. And we feel we need to double down, because the market is happening. We are being approached by so many [solution providers] -- like Optiv and GuidePoint Security and Trace3 and SHI and WWT. And we feel like we need to push a lot harder to take the market. We are feeling this is just the time. What are some of the channel investments you'll be focusing on with the new round? We are working with channels a lot. We are getting every deal through the channel. Even if it's inbound, we are being very explicit with our sales reps to move everything to the channel. We are working heavily with sponsoring channel events. We are investing almost half of our marketing budget just in events with channel. What do you point to as the biggest differentiators for Torq at this stage? The differences between the legacy [vendors] and what we do is very different. We've built this platform from the bottom up in the past three and a half years. The main difference between us and the legacy, and why enterprises are moving to Torq, is that we are highly flexible -- meaning that you can build whatever process that you want to build. You're not limited to anything. We can connect to anything, and we can run any process -- even if it's hard-coded or no code or low code. So you have full flexibility. And we [embed] a lot of AI functionality to help you to achieve a lot more. Part of the big difference is, we are serving not just the SOC [security operations center]. SOC is a huge consumer of automation. But for most of our clients, we are working with at least five teams. We are working with cloud security teams to remediate and automate and orchestrate Wiz alerts. And we are serving other teams -- GRC [governance, risk and compliance] teams and threat hunting teams and IAM [identity and access management] teams. So we are focusing on the broader automation landscape, and not just in the SOC. And you don't need developers to build those [functionalities]. With the legacy, you need developers. So from the legacy competitors, we are years ahead of them -- years. It's not parallel to anything that they have today. Where are you looking to take your product next? We're working on huge things going forward. We are focusing on helping the SOC to be a lot more efficient, a lot better. Today with AI, it takes just minutes to create a new attack. Organizations are being attacked a lot more often. So you're getting a lot more alerts. So we are improving our infrastructure to run at scale. We are running today more than 60 million automations a day for our customers. So we are going to invest a lot in improving the scalability for our customers and also to add lots of product functionality. We're working on some capabilities that will have GenAI to help you with threat hunting, without even building automation. Eventually we want AI to take all of your data, and understand what needs to be done, and then just spin up cases when it's needed -- until we get eventually to the autonomous SOC platform. So you don't feel a truly autonomous SOC is too far off? It's not. I think it's coming. AI is evolving every day. It's getting a lot cheaper. It's getting commoditized really fast. Today, 60 percent of our innovation is just on building AI tools, just to help deal with threats. Given how fast the attacks are coming, do you see that using AI and autonomous responses will be essential in the future? I believe so. I was chatting at Black Hat with the CISO of one of the four biggest banks in the U.S. He said that, three years ago, they had 1 billion security events a day. And he said that today, it's 4 billion, and growing each quarter by 25 percent. So you can imagine how it will look in 10 years. So we need something that can run on hyperscale. And the monolithic platforms that [exist] today, cannot do that.