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Typically when we talk about tech and security, the mind naturally jumps to cybersecurity. But equally important, especially for global companies with large, multinational organizations, is physical security â a key function at most medium-to-large enterprises, and yet one that to date, hasnât really done much to take advantage of recent advances in technology. Enter Base Operations, a startup founded by risk management professional Cory Siskind in 2018. Base Operations just closed their $2.2 million seed funding round and will use the money to capitalize on its recent launch of a street-level threat mapping platform for use in supporting enterprise security operations.
The funding, led by Good Growth Capital and including investors like Magma Partners, First In Capital, Gaingels and First Round Capital founder Howard Morgan, will be used primarily for hiring, as Base Operations looks to continue its team growth after doubling its employe base this past month. Itâll also be put to use extending and improving the companyâs product and growing the startupâs global footprint. I talked to Siskind about her companyâs plans on the heels of this round, as well as the wider opportunity and how her company is serving the market in a novel way.
âWhat we do at Base Operations is help companies keep their people in operation secure with âMicro Intelligence,â which is street-level threat assessments that facilitate a variety of routine security tasks in the travel security, real estate and supply chain security buckets,â Siskind explained. âAnything that the chief security officer would be in charge of, but not cyber â so anything that intersects with the physical world.â
Siskind has firsthand experience about the complexity and challenges that enter into enterprise security since she began her career working for global strategic risk consultancy firm Control Risks in Mexico City. Because of her time in the industry, sheâs keenly aware of just how far physical and political security operations lag behind their cybersecurity counterparts. Itâs an often overlooked aspect of corporate risk management, particularly since in the past itâs been something that most employees at North American companies only ever encounter periodically when their roles involve frequent travel. The events of the past couple of years have changed that, however.
âThis was the last bastion of a company that hadnât been optimized by a SaaS platform, basically, so there was some resistance and some allegiance to legacy players,â Siskind told me. âHowever, the events of 2020 sort of turned everything on its head, and companies realized that the security department, and what happens in the physical world, is not just about compliance â itâs actually a strategic advantage to invest in those sort of services, because it helps you maintain business continuity.â
The COVID-19 pandemic, increased frequency and severity of natural disasters, and global political unrest all had significant impact on businesses worldwide in 2020, and Siskind says that this has proven a watershed moment in how enterprises consider physical security in their overall risk profile and strategic planning cycles.
â[Companies] have just realized that if you donât invest [in] how to keep your operations running smoothly in the face of rising catastrophic events, youâre never going to achieve the profits that you need, because itâs too choppy, and you have all sorts of problems,â she said.
Base Operations addresses this problem by taking available data from a range of sources and pulling it together to inform threat profiles. Their technology is all about making sense of the myriad stream of information we encounter daily â taking the wash of news that we sometimes associate with âdoom-scrollingâ on social media, for instance, and combining it with other sources using machine learning to extrapolate actionable insights.
Those sources of information include âgovernment statistics, social media, local news, data from partnerships, like NGOs and universities,â Siskind said. That data set powers their Micro Intelligence platform, and while the startupâs focus today is on helping enterprises keep people safe, while maintaining their operations, you can easily see how the same information could power everything from planning future geographical expansion, to tailoring product development to address specific markets.
Siskind saw there was a need for this kind of approach to an aspect of business thatâs essential, but that has been relatively slow to adopt new technologies. From her vantage point two years ago, however, she couldnât have anticipated just how urgent the need for better, more scalable enterprise security solutions would arise, and Base Operations now seems perfectly positioned to help with that need.
SecuriThings snares $14M Series A to keep edge devices under control
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The funding, led by Good Growth Capital and including investors like Magma Partners, First In Capital, Gaingels and First Round Capital founder Howard Morgan, will be used primarily for hiring, as Base Operations looks to continue its team growth after doubling its employe base this past month. Itâll also be put to use extending and improving the companyâs product and growing the startupâs global footprint. I talked to Siskind about her companyâs plans on the heels of this round, as well as the wider opportunity and how her company is serving the market in a novel way.
âWhat we do at Base Operations is help companies keep their people in operation secure with âMicro Intelligence,â which is street-level threat assessments that facilitate a variety of routine security tasks in the travel security, real estate and supply chain security buckets,â Siskind explained. âAnything that the chief security officer would be in charge of, but not cyber â so anything that intersects with the physical world.â
Siskind has firsthand experience about the complexity and challenges that enter into enterprise security since she began her career working for global strategic risk consultancy firm Control Risks in Mexico City. Because of her time in the industry, sheâs keenly aware of just how far physical and political security operations lag behind their cybersecurity counterparts. Itâs an often overlooked aspect of corporate risk management, particularly since in the past itâs been something that most employees at North American companies only ever encounter periodically when their roles involve frequent travel. The events of the past couple of years have changed that, however.
âThis was the last bastion of a company that hadnât been optimized by a SaaS platform, basically, so there was some resistance and some allegiance to legacy players,â Siskind told me. âHowever, the events of 2020 sort of turned everything on its head, and companies realized that the security department, and what happens in the physical world, is not just about compliance â itâs actually a strategic advantage to invest in those sort of services, because it helps you maintain business continuity.â
The COVID-19 pandemic, increased frequency and severity of natural disasters, and global political unrest all had significant impact on businesses worldwide in 2020, and Siskind says that this has proven a watershed moment in how enterprises consider physical security in their overall risk profile and strategic planning cycles.
â[Companies] have just realized that if you donât invest [in] how to keep your operations running smoothly in the face of rising catastrophic events, youâre never going to achieve the profits that you need, because itâs too choppy, and you have all sorts of problems,â she said.
Base Operations addresses this problem by taking available data from a range of sources and pulling it together to inform threat profiles. Their technology is all about making sense of the myriad stream of information we encounter daily â taking the wash of news that we sometimes associate with âdoom-scrollingâ on social media, for instance, and combining it with other sources using machine learning to extrapolate actionable insights.
Those sources of information include âgovernment statistics, social media, local news, data from partnerships, like NGOs and universities,â Siskind said. That data set powers their Micro Intelligence platform, and while the startupâs focus today is on helping enterprises keep people safe, while maintaining their operations, you can easily see how the same information could power everything from planning future geographical expansion, to tailoring product development to address specific markets.
Siskind saw there was a need for this kind of approach to an aspect of business thatâs essential, but that has been relatively slow to adopt new technologies. From her vantage point two years ago, however, she couldnât have anticipated just how urgent the need for better, more scalable enterprise security solutions would arise, and Base Operations now seems perfectly positioned to help with that need.
SecuriThings snares $14M Series A to keep edge devices under control
Continue readingâŚ