NYSE-listed SentinelOne Acquires Bengaluru-Based PingSafe For $100 Million
NYSE-listed SentinelOne is acquiring Bengaluru-based cloud security platform PingSafe for $100 million, making a new crop of millionaires.
According to a report by Barclays, the acquisition, which is expected to be completed in combination with stock and cash in the first quarter of FY25, is the largest in the Indian cybersecurity startup space. Founded by Anand Prakash and Nishant Mittal in 2020, PingSafe raised $3.3 million in seed funding led by Peak XV Partners last year.
PingSafe provides products and services such as a centralized dashboard with real-time proof of exploitability by sending harmless payloads to hack customers” infrastructure, discovering those vulnerabilities immediately, and bridging the gap between attackers” modus operandi and security solutions in the market by aggregating intelligence via cloud APIs and logs.
Prakash acknowledged that he was not intent on selling the company. “I never thought I would sell. SentinelOne”s AI security platform is a game changer in cloud security that protects enterprises across endpoints, identities, and clouds. It has nearly 12,000 customers, and it would have taken us three years to get there. It”s also about the scale,” the Times of India reported, quoting Prakash.
Hailing from an agrarian family in Bain village in Churu district of Rajasthan, Prakash didn”t have a computer till he went to Kota for his IIT-JEE coaching, the report noted, confirming that he successfully completed his engineering degree later.
“I used to go to a nearby cyber center and pay Rs 10 per hour to browse the internet,” he told TOI.
Prakash started his career as a cyber security intern with the Haryana Police and thereafter landed his first job at Flipkart as a security engineer. After his stint at Flipkart, he cofounded the cyber security firm AppSecure with his brother. “He continues to run the firm. My wife is a security engineer, and my brother and cousins are into cyber security,” he said.
Prakash is a Whitehat hacker, recognized as one of the top 30 young leaders in enterprise technology in Asia by Forbes magazine in 2017 for helping big companies like Meta, Uber, Twitter, Tinder, and Salesforce find security weaknesses in their systems.
