For this edition of the Forgepoint Field Guide, I caught up with Jon Gelsey, former CEO of Auth0, an iDaaS startup acquired by Okta for $6.5B in 2021, and former CEO of Xnor.ai, a deep neural network ML startup acquired by Apple for $200M in 2020. …

by Connie Qian and Sekhar Sarukkai Sekhar Sarukkai is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and startup advisor. His distinguished career spans security and enterprise software startups, including Skyhigh Networks (acquired by McAfee), Securent (acquired by Cisco), and Confluent (acquired by Oracle). …

We recently announced a $20 million Series A in SolCyber, the modern managed security service provider (MSSP). This wasn’t a typical investment — SolCyber was incubated within the ForgePoint team and leverages our portfolio companies to reduce, monitor, and respond to cybersecurity events. …

Many Series A and B companies are just beginning to scale their sales teams. This includes not only recruiting sales reps, but also ensuring that these new hires receive the training and enablement needed to succeed. Shaan Hathiramani has built a company, Flockjay, around this challenge. Flockjay is a training…

Last week, the Biden Administration published its Executive Order (EO) on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. The detailed 34-page report is intended to initiate “bold changes and significant investments in order to defend the vital institutions that underpin the American way of life.” In addition to increased reporting and threat sharing…

A Customer Advisory Board (“CAB”) can be an invaluable resource for startups, but many CEOs struggle with putting together the right structure and group of advisors. That’s why we spoke to Mike McKee on how he leveraged CABs as CEO of ObserveIT. Under his tenure, ObserveIT more than doubled in…

Steve Pataky, Chief Revenue Officer at Area 1 Security (a ForgePoint Capital portfolio company), shares his lessons learned on building global channel programs. We often hear that early-stage companies should avoid channel sales. The channel is complex to navigate and lacks a direct feedback loop from customers. As a startup…