Building a Cyber Security Company from Israel: Aki Eldar, CEO of Secure Islands (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You had that experience as well. Both of you were security industry insiders and had lots of insight into what’s happening. The reason why I’m asking for this background is that security is probably the segment of the startup industry that has the maximum entrepreneurial activity. It’s crowded. There’s constant startup activity going on. Unless you have a really good handle on the ecosystem, it’s very difficult to do security companies.

Aki Eldar: I absolutely agree with you. This is also one of the reasons why it was really hard at the beginning. Do you know a bit about Data Leakage Prevention?

Sramana Mitra: A little bit, yes.

Aki Eldar: It’s also dealing with data protection but in a totally different way. It’s not protecting the data itself. It’s protecting the infrastructure against data loss and data leakage. This space was really crowded when we started Secure Islands. Only security experts understood our vision. One of them was Shlomo Kramer, who I assume you know. >>>

Building a Technology Product Company From India: Varun Singh, Founder and CTO of ScaleArc (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You guys have already done six months prototype building with seven engineers?

Varun Singh: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: Nexus gave you money before that process started?

Varun Singh: Nexus gave us our seed round.

Sramana Mitra: How much?

Varun Singh: $750,000.

Sramana Mitra: How long did that take you? >>>

Building a Cyber Security Company from Israel: Aki Eldar, CEO of Secure Islands (Part 2)

Aki Eldar: I and my brother founded Secure Islands. We did that because we figured out that there is a huge problem in the security industry. The problem was that people are talking about securing data, but they’re not actually doing it. They are securing the infrastructure, the exits, and the devices. But they are not securing the data itself. We thought that something needs to change here because it’s an endless game trying to fight against different threats and bad guys. It would be like a dog chasing its own tail. It will continue forever, but it will never succeed.

Instead of trying to defend threats, why not protect what is really important, which is the data itself. We are talking about unstructured data because this is the biggest problem. The reason that it is the biggest problem is as soon as a file or email is created, it’s already exposed internally and externally to thousands of different thread vectors. At the same time, organizations are no longer located in one place. They are located in a lot of places. Their data is spread all over – internally, externally, cloud, and mobile. This is a distributed environment. It is impossible to protect data by protecting the perimeter because the perimeter is not there anymore. We are talking about borderless enterprises. >>>

Building a Technology Product Company From India: Varun Singh, Founder and CTO of ScaleArc (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: This was what year?

Varun Singh: This was 2009.

Sramana Mitra: What is ScaleArc?

Varun Singh: ScaleArc is a database traffic management company. We provide a software that runs on top of MySQL and provide users the ability to run on a distributed data source without having to understand the application.

Sramana Mitra: You started this in India? >>>

Building a Cyber Security Company from Israel: Aki Eldar, CEO of Secure Islands (Part 1)

Security is the venture industry’s most active segment. It is also the most crowded segment, and unless you have deep domain knowledge, you cannot play in the business. Aki and his brother do have deep domain knowledge and have leveraged that to build an exciting company.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Aki Eldar: I was born in Israel more than 50 years ago. I’m just past 50. Like any typical Israeli, I graduated high school, moved to military and finished my military duties. I also worked for the Israeli government for a few years. Then, I graduated with a Bachelor in Management and Economics and started my journey in the high tech industry.

Sramana Mitra: What year did you finish your education and enter the industry? >>>

Building a Technology Product Company From India: Varun Singh, Founder and CTO of ScaleArc (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I didn’t find studying engineering boring at all.

Varun Singh: The guys at PC Quest were so exciting. It probably wasn’t boring, but I started working with people who were a little too exciting at that point in time.

Sramana Mitra: At 18, you were in Mumbai working for Chip Magazine. How long did that go on?

Varun Singh: I was there for about three and a half years.

Sramana Mitra: That brings us up to what year?

Varun Singh: I joined them in January 2002. >>>

Do It For Me Analytics: Anil Kaul, CEO of Absolutdata (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

We’re noticing a trend that I have written about in the past: SaaS-enabled BPO, also called Do It For Me (DIFM) technologies. The interview discusses the trend in some depth. Other stories on the subject include our case studies of AthenaHealth, Sabrix, and LatentView Analytics.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised and in what kind of background?

Anil Kaul: I was born and raised in India.

Sramana Mitra: Where in India?

Anil Kaul: I was born in Kashmir. >>>

Building a Technology Product Company From India: Varun Singh, Founder and CTO of ScaleArc (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

There are very few true technology product companies out of India that have made it to the global market. Varun Singh founded one of them, ScaleArc. The company is currently headquartered in Silicon Valley and is executing well. Some of the others are: Druva, InMobi, and Freshdesk.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where you were born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Varun Singh: I’m from the north of India. I was raised in Chandigarh before I left and started working.

Sramana Mitra: Did you do all your schooling in Chandigarh?

Varun Singh: A majority of it. I travelled around a bit but pretty much, a few hundred miles of Chandigarh. >>>