Led · Equity · Feb 2020

Polyverse develops cybersecurity technology, including “Polymorphing for Linux,” that protects servers against zero-day, code-execution, overflow and other memory-based attacks. Its technology is deployed by government and security-conscious organizations and is embedded in IoT devices and connected hardware such as healthcare devices. Polyverse Polymorphed Linux is currently running on millions of servers. The technology has been validated by the U.S. Department of Defense to mitigate zero-day memory exploits like WannaCry and Spectre and attacks on companies such as Equifax. Founded in 2015 and led by CEO Alex Gounares, the company received $8m in new funding. It intends to use the funds to accelerate adoption among government agencies and solution providers and to expand capabilities such as polymorphic script engines and polymorphic build farms for DevSecOps. Polyverse provides a proactive Moving Target Defense technology that continuously varies a protected application’s attack surface to defend against inevitable breaches. The company’s solutions are optimized for DevOps and target protection for critical applications and Internet-of-Things devices. Led by CEO Alex Gounares, Polyverse positions its products to reduce exploitability of software in production environments. The firm announced it secured an additional $2m in funding to support its operations. Management intends to use the proceeds to accelerate growth and fund new product introductions. Polyverse develops software technologies based on the concept of “moving target defense” (MTD) to stop cyberattacks and protect an organization’s server and cloud applications, from databases to websites to mobile and other remote devices. Its technology dynamically partitions an organization’s data into vast numbers of secure containers, with each container having its own security and defenses. The container system is described as intrinsically self‑healing: containers cycle, resetting to a known good state and automatically eliminating any malware that may have been installed. The company is led by CEO Alex Gounares. Polyverse is based in Kirkland, Washington. The article reports that the company secured additional funding but provides no operating metrics.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2020

Polyverse's main product is "Polymorphing for Linux," which scrambles open-source code without affecting its operation to shield it from hackers. The company also sells Polyscripting for WordPress to remove common WordPress attack vectors, and its software runs on-premise, in the cloud, and on IoT devices. Polyverse has been validated by the U.S. Department of Defense for mitigating zero-day attacks. It recently signed a partnership with SUSE and has moved to accelerate a healthcare offering by hiring Dr. Ralph Pascualy. The company is led by CEO Alexander Gounares and was named to CNBC’s top 100 startups list last year; it employs about 40 people. Financially, Polyverse has raised additional capital and reports total funding to date of $21 million. Polyverse develops a "Polymorphing for Linux" product that scrambles open-source Linux code without affecting operation to shield it from hackers. Its technology is used by government organizations and security-minded companies and has been validated by the U.S. Department of Defense for mitigating zero-day attacks. The company says the technology is running on millions of servers. Polyverse emphasizes preventive security—stopping attacks before they start—rather than reactive defenses. The company has grown headcount by about 50% over the last year to roughly 30 employees and recently added senior hires from Microsoft and SUSE. Polyverse plans to use the funding to expand in North America and Japan and enter the U.K. and Singapore. Polyverse's flagship product, Polyverse Linux, defends open-source Linux distributions by generating slightly different, unique builds every 12 hours to protect against attacks that exploit memory bugs. The company says its software is deployed on millions of servers and counts the Department of Defense as a customer, with other government agencies expressing interest. Polyverse is preparing a Windows version of its product, with early releases expected later this year to extend protection to Windows machines and desktops. The company has more than 30 employees in Bellevue and is currently profitable. Management funds operations with current revenue, though CEO Alex Gounares said the company might burn some cash in the future to fund expansion. Polyverse has raised a total of $10 million to date. Polyverse builds Polymorphic Linux, a moving-target defense technology that continually changes the attack surface to make exploits extraordinarily difficult. The product protects the full Linux stack and more than 10,000 open-source projects and is designed to stop zero-day attacks such as Spectre and Meltdown without affecting application performance or scale. The company says the solution is "intrinsically secure" and reports strong commercial traction. Polyverse is profitable and growing rapidly; it brought in as much revenue last quarter as it did in the entire 2017 calendar year. The startup is about three years old, operates out of the Seattle area, and has a roughly 20-person team. Management plans to use new capital to expand the team and add sales horsepower to accelerate growth. Polyverse develops a "moving target defense" that continuously creates ephemeral containers from a last-known-good state to service requests and then garbage-collects them (typically about five seconds), which the company says removes inserted malware and hinders APT attacks. The technology integrates with existing hardware and software and is described as self-healing, likened to wiping a hard disk when containers are replaced. Polyverse positions this architecture as undermining the economics of cybercrime by forcing attackers to constantly rethink strategies. The company focuses on protecting organizations' server and cloud applications end-to-end. Polyverse is led by Alex Gounares, who previously served as CTO of AOL, corporate vice president at Microsoft, and was CEO of Concurix (sold to Strongloop earlier this year). The company employs just under 20 people and recently raised additional funding to support its operations.