Security Startup Avanan Exits Stealth with Combo Security for SaaS Apps

The security startup space continues to be a hotbed of activity. One of the latest companies to emerge from stealth to offer what it thinks will be the future of security is Tel Aviv-based Avanan, which is promising one-click deployment of security technologies to protect enterprise data in the cloud.

Avanan’s cloud security platform protects enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps like Office 365, Box or Google by offering a combination of cloud-based versions of security technology from more than 60 leading vendors, including Check Point, Symantec and Palo Alto Networks, the company said in a press release. All IT administrators need to do to deploy a suite of security that includes malware scanning, advanced threat protection, data leakage prevention, anomaly detection, encryption, cloud access control and more is to click a single button, according to Avanan.

Gil Friedrich, co-founder and CEO of Avanan, said the company developed its technology based on feedback from previous experience in the network security market, where customers were looking for a better way to protect data in the cloud.

“We came from the world of network security, where our customers told us that their data was moving to the cloud, but the security offered by ‘cloud access security brokers’ was limited to a few young startups with immature and proprietary technologies,” he said. “As we have seen in security, no single vendor has ever been able to provide best of breed in all technologies, so, we set out to solve the problem with a completely different approach—creating a platform that interoperates any security with any cloud.”

Indeed, Avanan’s founding team is no slouch in launching successful security companies. Friedrich and his team also led one of Israel’s largest security companies, ForeScout Technologies, to become a leader in the network access control market. The company also has significant financial backing from two top Israeli venture-capital firms, Magma VC and StageOne. Avanan has headquarters in New York in addition to its base in Israel.

Tal Slobodkin, managing partner at StageOne Ventures and former lead of Cisco’s corporate mergers, acquisitions and investments activities, said that Avanan’s combining of top security technologies in one solution to protect cloud data is the first cloud security solution “that finally made sense.” 

“Because it relies on best-of-breed technologies, out of the gate it provides a level of cloud security that is better than all the existing solutions,” he said in the press release. We believe that this is the future of security.”

Avanan’s technology has been available for several weeks and in that time 20 customers—including U.S.-based Fortune 500 and NASDAQ-traded technology companies—have adopted it, the company said.