watchTowr raises US$19 mil to redefine External Attack Surface Management

• Latest investment brings total funding to US$29 million
• Funds will be used to capture market leadership, accelerate global growth

watchTowr, the cybersecurity startup redefining External Attack Surface Management, has announced a US$19 million (RM81 million) Series A funding round led by Peak XV, formerly known as Sequoia India & Southeast Asia, with repeat participation from Prosus Ventures and Cercano Management. In a statement, the company said it would use the funds to capture market leadership and accelerate global growth by expanding its go-to-market, research, and engineering teams. This latest investment brings its total funding to US$29 million (RM124 million).

According to watchTowr, it has seen significant adoption over the past year from critical infrastructure and Fortune 500 companies seeking to strengthen their security measures.

It stated that advancements in AI are rapidly increasing the types and modalities of exploits affecting large businesses. Human experts and traditional cybersecurity products will not be able to defend against the speed of these attacks. Built by offensive security experts, watchTowr simulates the ingenuity and persistence of attackers, enabling organisations to react swiftly to emerging techniques and threats. The startup’s platform also constructs a real-time attacker’s view of an organisation, continuously identifying and validating exploitable vulnerabilities before attacks occur.

watchTowr was founded by hacker-turned-entrepreneur Benjamin Harris (pic). Harris has built a remarkable profile in the cybersecurity industry over 14 years after having hacked into his school network at the age of 16. Since then, he has assisted companies around the world strengthen their cybersecurity defense and processes.

“If there’s a way to compromise your organisation, watchTowr will find it,” said Harris, CEO and Founder of watchTowr. “In the last 12 months, our predictions have been realised. Attackers have become faster at weaponising emerging vulnerabilities, more aggressive at leveraging weaknesses to compromise organisations indiscriminately, and time to exploitation in the wild is now measured in single-digit hours. We firmly believe that rapid reaction to these threats is one of the most powerful capabilities security teams can leverage.”

Backed by the company’s research, the watchTowr Platform is the fastest to exploit the latest vulnerabilities, tactics, and techniques used by sophisticated adversaries, enabling organisations to test their defences. watchTowr Labs, the firm’s threat and vulnerability R&D arm, has become globally renowned. It recently demonstrated the compromise of substantial portions of Internet infrastructure, and in February 2024, it was the first to analyse and reproduce vulnerabilities used by APT groups to compromise western government entities through Ivanti’s Connect Secure VPN product (CVE-2024-22024). watchTowr has consistently been the first to provide analysis for many of 2024’s most severe vulnerabilities.

In addition to the funding, the company announced the appointment of Chris Merritt, former Cloudflare president of Field Operations & chief revenue officer, to its board of directors to guide watchTowr’s global growth. Merritt spent over ten years at Cloudflare, helping the company scale to over US$1 billion (RM4.2 billion) in annual recurring revenue. He is currently an operating partner at Peak XV.

“watchTowr has an incredible team, technology, and opportunity,” said Merritt. “They’re solving a major challenge for global organisations by enabling them to view their systems like trained adversaries, validate weaknesses, and help stop breaches—at scale. watchTowr is seeing incredible interest, and we look forward to helping Harris and the rest of the team establish their future as the next market leader in cybersecurity.”