A metro-area cybersecurity startup that moved to Colorado from Austin has plans to double its staff this year after raising $8.2 million from venture capital investors.
Threat X, based in Louisville, raised the Series A funding in a round led by Westminster-based Access Venture Partners and Vienna, Virginia-based Grotech Ventures, two companies that frequently invest in Colorado startups.
“We spent two years working on the technology and hardening it with customers, and now we’ve got the resources to really start scaling,” said Bret Settle, CEO and co-founder of Threat X.
The company launched in Austin but soon thereafter moved to Louisville.
Threat X’s technology serves as a firewall across a lot of software applications a business might use, many of which have the potential to be a weak spot exploited by malicious software and lead to a data breach.
Threat X’s founders wanted to take advantage of the growing cybersecurity industry expertise and the funding that would be available Colorado, Settle said.
A growing number of cybersecurity startups have launched or moved to Colorado, and the state government has pushed to establish the Front Range as a hub for the cybersecurity.
Colorado job-growth tax incentives awarded by the Colorado Economic Development Commission helped convinced the company to move to Louisville, Settle said.
He had connections to Denver metro-area technology professionals and investors from his days in information security and tech executive positions at Broomfield-based Corporate Express, the office supply business purchased in 2008 by Staples.
Settle later worked in security and IT roles at BMC Software after leaving Corporate Express.
His and his co-founders’ careers in corporate software and data security gave them insight into the failings of most cybersecurity services and led them start Threat X, Settle said.
“The technologies had not evolved anywhere as fast as the attack vectors have,” he said. “One of the other frustrations is that you had no visibility, no way to even know it’s working.”
Threat X’s customers include BMC Software, Denver Health, Global Healthcare Exchange, and Kroenke Sports and Entertainment.
It has 12 employees now and expects to a least double that head count this year, adding technology development staff and sales and marketing, Settle said.
