Phalanx Pitches at Startup Battlefield | TechCrunch Disrupt 2023

From Arlington Virginia we have Phalanx Presenting for this company is Ian Garrett co-founder and CEO given Round Of Applause and bring him on out Hey folks I'm Ian Garrett co-founder and CEO of phalanx we have cyber security That lets humans be human How many files do you have on your Computer when's the last time that you Access them how many are PDFs and where In the world are people accessing your Data a single piece of personal Identifiable information known as pii Can cost an organization 186 dollars per Record a single file can contain Thousands of records and yet a security Team has no easy way to answer any of The questions I ask especially Company-wide Existing Cyber Solutions Make humans responsible for security Actions when in reality security actions Often get in the way of getting a job Done The more secure systems will Individually encrypt files but there's a Lot of overhead and it's burdensome the More productive systems will open the Aperture encrypt larger areas but when a User is actually using that data it Leaves it exposed in the constant battle Between security and productivity why Does it feel like we can't let humans be Human

When it comes to deploying a traditional Data loss prevention tool 98 of Organizations take more than a few weeks With almost half of them taking four Months to over a year can you imagine Spending one million dollars on a tool That you can't even use for the next Year Failing submission focuses on the core Problem that users have to make security Decisions and they pit that against Productivity decisions when that when in Reality people are getting paid for Productivity not security no one has Ever gotten paid to not click a phishing Link we make this possible by focusing On the everyday actions users take with Their documents and then we overlay that Into the existing environments that They're already in this approach is key Because it reduces the attack surface if You have a thousand files on your Computer And you're only using one then you Expose that one while 999 files are Secured by Phalanx those 999 unused Secured files don't impact your Productivity however it completely Hinders the ability to steal that data Phalanx is like turning your office into A bank vault where phalix is the key Card where employees can badge in and Access the locks boxes that they're Supposed to

Now security isn't useful if it's not Used which means productivity efficiency And ease of deployment and management Are key for security teams as they're Deploying data loss prevention tools Traditional data loss prevention is Rules based which means there's a human Being that sits behind a terminal hand Jamming rules into the system and if That process takes months then there's Months of potential human error being Coded directly into those systems in Contrast Phalanx is an identity based Solution that leverages Automation and That means we're Deployable in less than A day and requires zero weekly Maintenance now what does this actually Look like please move the demo The foundation of what Phalanx is built On is tying identity to individualized Encrypted files If the decrypted file is on a desktop we Make it easy for the end user to access That data because again we want humans To be human they can double click files Right click files everything that They're used to today now encrypted Files automatic otherwise very important And interesting but what really moves The needle is what's next You can't protect what you can't see and Phalanx Provides a digital map of every file Across every existing workspace cisos

Can finally see who's accessing what Where and how across their workspaces no Matter where they are in the world if an Employee has 50 000 files on their Laptop that's they haven't touched in Seven years that's a massive security Risk so there's time to do something About that if somebody's opening a file In a country that you don't have an Office you can restrict that from Opening And this wealth of data is not only Accessible just on our dashboard but It's portable to a via API to any kind Of existing monitoring or analytic Systems Thanks now back to presentation We've reduced the cyberbous exposure of Our customers in the financial services And Government Contracting sectors by Over 60 percent with that number growing As we continue to roll out automations We also have a dual prong go to market Strategy we'll refocus on mid to large Scale Enterprise by doing per user Requirements so we're scalable with the Needs of those security teams and we can Also deploy out to smbs Via the channel So we have Channel partners that Represent tens of thousands of users Under management that finally have an Ability to deploy data loss prevention To their SMB clients so not only are we Securing their data we're actually

Enabling their businesses Our our opportunity is exponentially Growing as long as as with our Channel Partners as businesses The only way that we can continue to Build the Next Generation and data loss Prevention is with our design Partners So if you're a financial institution or An SMB that struggles with quantifying The Cyber risk of your organization Solve that problem today at phalanx.io Thank you Okay Morgan let's start with you sure Another demo that works what a thrill Um four for four I'm curious what you Both were doing before this yes so um so Both of us actually met at West Point For undergrad and we both commissioned To the Army I was a cyber officer he was A Lotus station Afterwards I went into a PhD program Focused on Cyber and AI so you can tell It like cyber you went into an MBA Worked at Deloitte as a cyber risk Consultant we actually have a third Co-founder as well who's our CTO who's Pretty much spent the entire time Building and leading teams building Large-scale secure Systems Great glad I Asked me too Mark Yeah I was curious if uh there's some New tech breakthrough that allows you to Build this product or if this is Something you could have also built five

Years ago or ten years ago yeah so the The biggest thing that's changed over Time is the processing power on the edge So uh let's say 15 years ago you know Doing encryption at the individual level Can be processing heavy however in Today's day and age our mobile phones Our watches definitely our laptops all Good to go on that standpoint gotcha Thanks Healing sure yeah great demo good job Four out of four amazing Um so what's the pressure for number Five yeah I just make sure I totally get It so uh does this require that every File on your computer is in the cloud Primarily then locally downloads as you Need it uh even better so we encrypt in Place to where it's at so if it's on Your desktop we'll encrypt it on the Desktop if it's in Google Drive or OneDrive we'll encrypt it in place there As well so we want the data to stay Resident to where it's at we do the key Distribution and management in our Cloud But all the data actually stays where It's at got it okay super fast fall Question I love you kind of pointing out That it's you know productivity versus Security everyone's paid by productivity Really wise point so does this hamper Like load speed or anything like that Like local performance how does it Change yeah so the the biggest

Difference I would say in the Microseconds most users don't notice the Impact to opening a PDF or a Word Document and again because in today's Day and age with all the modern Processing the actual encryption doesn't Actually slow down the machine very much And the actual data that's required is Minimal because it's just the key got it Great thanks Tess Super impressive technology if I were a CSO evaluating your product who might I Also be evaluating as well tell me a Little bit about the competitive Landscape yes so there's two uh so in The in the world of cyber security which Is super convoluted we live in the data Security realm so we focus on securing Data and specifically unstructured data So everything that's outside of a Database so there's two main areas that Are two main ways that you would secure That so that one is with a data loss Prevention solution uh that's like a net Scope or a proof point that most of them Focus on again kind of putting in rules Where as data is moving around an Organization they say oh you can't go There oop you can't download that the Issue is it's trying to capture data Loss as it's happening so it's not Really preventative the other side is Just encrypted storage that's something Like

Um a company called Prevail or even like A box.com where they're trying to have An encrypted Enclave where they have the Data that's secured but the issue there Is there's not visibility across the Entire workspace so a lot of people deal With documents in other other personal Drives desktops there's a lot of areas Where the systems don't have visibility Okay and and one of your slides said You're focused on SMB would you go up to Mid-market at Enterprise and you're Starting there and eventually going to Expand in White Glove or that's the Customer Sweet Spot actually uh so we we Do Service uh both so we do the Mid-market and a large scale as a direct Sales and then we approach the SMB via Our Channel Partners um because we Primarily sell to the system and Security team and we found that uh Mid-size and large scale obviously have Systems SMB is often outsourced it so That's why we go through their trusted Partners which are the channel partners Healy another question I was going to Ask distribution strategy but you just Answered it I read your mind Okay anything else I have a question so As you've gone to Market what have been The biggest surprises as far as like What customers want what customers hate What part of the pitch resonates oh 100 So that's actually why we're even doing

The way we're doing today we started With more of an encrypted Focus we found That nobody actually is interested in Buying security there's been a couple One-offs like oh gee whiz that's cool But we found the visibility component And then that map that we're showing That's a huge game changer that's where They go oh wow I didn't realize I had This there and that and so that the data Aspect of actually understanding and Feeling comfortable that has been the Game changer for our customers yeah a Lot of questions now let's go to Preeti What keeps other folks from copying our Your approach what are your modes in the Business yes so uh the biggest thing That we've done is go against rules Based towards identity based so our key Distribution management system and as Well as we have a multiple encryptions Per file as so we encrypt the file and Get the metadata Associated that so that Whole distribution system is IP for us Have you filed patterns we haven't yet But we are looking into which components To patent obviously we don't want to Give away the secret sauce Test I'm going to put you on the spot And that's just because we're running Out of questions up here Um I'm assuming Customers that are on your platform if If you go down they go down how's your

Uptime been for your customers thus far Yeah so so far I mean we're built on AWS And also awf sgov Cloud for our Government Contracting customers so Anytime there's it's a data class called A cui for government data so we lit we Host that on idiosk gov Cloud we host Everything else on Commercial and then We also have a redundancy system again Going into that security productivity we We don't want to be the reason why with Some other business fails so we have a Multiple redundancy system for both the Keys and everything else 100 uptime yes Damn nice well that's a good place to Stop thank you so much give him a round Of applause