Former Juniper, Cisco, Fortinet Execs Bring Cybersecurity Startup Out of Stealth

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A new cybersecurity startup founded by execs formerly with Juniper Networks, Fortinet, Barracuda Networks, Cisco and more, has exited stealth mode with the launch of a partner program and a new artificial-intelligence (AI)-driven pervasive breach detection system (PBDS).

Aella Data is backed by NetScreen co-founder Feng Deng and his venture firm, Northern Light Venture Capital, as well as various security industry veterans and investors. Its Starlight PBDS unifies collected data and conducts advanced analysis to deliver alerts designed to reduce detection time from months to minutes, and alerting volume from thousands to only a few.

Aella Data’s Paul Jespersen

Paul Jespersen, Aella Data’s vice president of corporate and business development, tells Channel Partners several partners already have signed on and a couple more are in process right now.

“By end of the quarter, we expect to be over six partners signed and a strong pipeline of interest,” he said. “We have three kinds of partners with corresponding programs for each — integration partners, channel partners and our MSSP/MDR partners. Today, our channel partners are mostly regional VARs in a variety of territories. We also have a couple of early partners internationally, and are working with several more in Asia right now.”

Aella Data also is preparing to launch its MSSP program along with its new multitenancy feature, Jespersen said.

“We have our first MSSP already engaged with end-user customers, and are in discussions with a handful more, building up the pipeline in preparation for a full launch of that program,” he said.

Aella Data offerings are being used in a variety of environments and applications, including container visibility, autonomous vehicle security, data centers supporting tens of thousands of servers, and MSSPs supporting midsize enterprise customers, the company said.

“Starlight is an excellent choice for partners,” Jespersen said. “As the only multitenant breach detection solution in the industry, it is ideal for MSSPs and MDR services, as well as for VARs wanting to offer managed services. Also, because Starlight can be deployed pervasively across all kinds of network environments, including clouds, virtual machines (VMs), and even containers, partners don’t have to source separate solutions for each situation. Starlight also extends the value of other solutions, like next-generation firewalls or security information and event management (SIEMs), so it’s very complementary to other solutions, while bringing sophisticated AI and visibility to the table, helping end users identify the real issues through our high-fidelity alerts.”

Aella Data expects to leverage most of its business through its VAR partners on the high end, and through its MSSP and MDR partners on the SMB to mid-enterprise side, he said.

“Aella Data is a perfect breach detection platform for MSSPs due to its multitenancy and sophisticated AI that reduces the number of alerts our security operations center (SOC) has to deal with,” said Douglas Mannella, vice president of business development at CyFlare, an Aella Data MSSP partner.