Bootstrapping a High Growth Cyber Security Venture with a Paycheck: Christian Geyer, CEO of ACTFORE (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Were you aware of this regulatory requirement in your original business?

Christian Geyer: Yes. I was part of a cybersecurity incident response company back in 2016 at the Crypsis group I had talked about. We sold it for $260 million to Palo Alto Networks, a cyber security company.

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Analysis of Palo Alto Network’s Protect AI Acquisition

The global AI cybersecurity market is expected to grow from $25.4 billion in 2024 to $31.4 billion this year, at 24% CAGR from 2025 to 2034. Yesterday, Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW) announced mixed quarterly results that did not please the market. The stock fell 4% in the after hours trading session. 

Bootstrapping a High Growth Cyber Security Venture with a Paycheck: Christian Geyer, CEO of ACTFORE (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What was the subsidiary doing that warranted spinning it out into its own company?

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Bootstrapping a High Growth Cyber Security Venture with a Paycheck: Christian Geyer, CEO of ACTFORE (Part 1)

Christian convinced the Board of his employer to let him incubate a Cyber Security startup idea as a division of the company with an express intent of spinning it off.

Now, the company has been spun out, doing almost $20M in bootstrapped annual revenue, and may soon find a lucrative Exit. This is a phenomenal story for entrepreneurs considering the Bootstrapping with a Paycheck route.

1Mby1M AI Investor Forum: Piyush Kharbanda, General Partner at Vertex Ventures (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: I see. I’m going to go a little bit to a 30,000-foot level and ask you to comment on what else you’re seeing in India that we should keep in our vision, in terms of trends or developments or concerns. What’s going on?

Colors: Ainhoa II

I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Ainhoa II

Ainhoa II | Sramana Mitra, 2018 | Watercolor, Ink | 9  x 12, On Paper

1Mby1M AI Investor Forum: Piyush Kharbanda, General Partner at Vertex Ventures (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. I gave a talk recently at Kellogg about Indian startups: Past, Present, and Future. The recording will be available soon. We’ll publish it and you can take a look. One of the things I said is that India has this background in the services industry; the services industry came out of low-end services, BPO, et cetera. But now with human-in-the loop AI services, wherever there is a do-it-for-me scenario, this is actually to India’s advantage, especially if the services can be done from India.

Colors: Ainhoa I

I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Ainhoa I

Ainhoa I | Sramana Mitra, 2018 | Watercolor, Ink | 9  x 12, On Paper