GreyNoise positions itself as an “anti-threat intelligence” company that acts like a spam filter for security alerts by analyzing internet scanning traffic. It operates a network of 5,000 passive sensors deployed in data centers worldwide to collect, analyze and label IPs that scan the internet. Customers using GreyNoise report an average 25% reduction in security alerts, and the company has grown from seven to 50 employees with more than 100 paying customers, including the U.S. Department of Defense. GreyNoise says it was the first to detect broad exploitation of the Log4Shell vulnerability, which led CEO Andrew Morris to testify before the Department of Homeland Security and inspired new blocking functionality. The startup plans to “drastically” expand the size and scope of its data-collection efforts and build out product capabilities with new funding. Morris also said the company has no immediate headcount expansion plans and is taking a tactical approach to hiring amid broader layoffs. GreyNoise collects packets from IPs via a sensor network and monitors common internet business services to identify which alerts are relevant and which are background noise. The company helps security operations centers reduce false positives and focus on more concerning threats. It is a three-year-old startup with over 11,000 accounts, more than 1,000 daily users on its free tier, and roughly 75 enterprise customers; it is adding a few hundred users weekly. Staff headcount grew from five to 24 over the past year, and the company expects to add another 15–20 employees before year-end. In 2020 GreyNoise raised $4.8 million in seed funding led by Charles River Ventures with participation from Paladin Capital Group. Following the new partnership, GreyNoise plans to release additional open-source tools later this year, and features from the In-Q-Tel collaboration will be available to users in the next six to nine months. GreyNoise collects traffic from a distributed network of sensors in hundreds of data centers, applies rule-based automated analysis (not currently machine learning) and filters out benign scanning and crawling activity so customers see fewer irrelevant alerts. The product reduces the volume of alerts that require attention by roughly 20%. Today the company has 7 employees and about 40 customers, and it plans to hire roughly 10 more people over the next year with emphasis on sales, marketing and engineering. Roadmap items include adding machine-learning elements and building products that enable customers to collect data in exchange for subscription discounts. GreyNoise also plans partnerships with ISPs and data-center owners to expand its data collection footprint. GreyNoise Intelligence is a Washington, DC–based cybersecurity startup that identifies Internet background noise caused by benign sources which inflate the volume of security alerts. By filtering out that background noise, GreyNoise helps security operations teams streamline and prioritize threat analysis. The company was founded by Andrew Morris. It initially released a free API to access its collected data, which quickly gained thousands of followers, and later deployed an enterprise service in late 2018. GreyNoise completed a $600K seed financing and intends to use the funds to expand operations and continue development efforts.

Total raised

$20M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Jun 2022