Red Balloon Security is a leading embedded-device cybersecurity provider that follows a "Defend from Within" approach to firmware security. Its core product, OFRAK, is a DevOps tool for advanced binary analysis and hardening that can identify, unpack, modify, repack, and harden many binary formats without source code. OFRAK provides runtime integrity protections, attack-surface reduction, basic-block-level binary randomization, and both a GUI for less experienced users and a Python API for power users. The company is commercializing OFRAK for commercial device manufacturers and the Defense Industrial Base, and plans go-to-market activities including executing a marketing strategy and conducting customer outreach. Financially, Red Balloon received $310,000 in non-dilutive funding from DARPA's Embedded Entrepreneurship Initiative for commercialization and has received $22.4 million in DARPA funding since 2013. Founded in 2011 and announced from New York, the firm couples government-funded R&D with product commercialization efforts. Red Balloon Security develops Symbiote Defense, an embedded systems security technology that protects devices without requiring changes to source code or hardware. The product has been deployed across industries and is already used by customers including HP, Inc. Symbiote was developed over a 10-year process with support from DARPA and the Department of Homeland Security S&T and has operated for more than 15 billion continuous hours protecting millions of endpoints. The company’s research team is led by academic researchers and the firm has a history of disclosing vulnerabilities and leading DoD-funded research. Red Balloon plans to use new funding to expand business operations and to deploy Symbiote more widely across consumer, industrial, automotive and critical infrastructure environments. The company was founded in 2011 by Dr. Ang Cui.

Total raised

$22M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Apr 2018