Monk's Hill watches cyber security with eye of the tiger

Singapore

THE cyber security challenge for South-east Asia's vast sea of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is a deep-seated lack of both resources and know-how in the field, says Monk's Hill Ventures' co-founder and managing partner Lim Kuo-Yi.

Addressing the gap with a holistic, multi-layered solution that is also cost-efficient is how cyber security startup Horangi wound up with an investment from Monk's Hill, which led a US$3.1 million Series A round in 2017 with participation from 500 Startups and Australia venture firm Right Click Capital. Since then, Horangi has expanded to seven offices globally.

Traditional cyber security vendors focus on building complex, highly specialised software suited for customers in perhaps the Fortune 500 league. But SMEs have less complex IT needs, and instead require an affordable and integrated, easy-to-use platform.

Founded in 2016, Singapore-based Horangi - which is "tiger" in Korean - seeks to help companies' IT professionals manage digital security without having to be cyber security experts. Its products monitor cloud infrastructure and software for vulnerabilities and recommend fixes, as well as provide training modules to get customers' employees up to speed. Horangi also offers in-house experts to help customers develop technical solutions for security and compliance, perform security assessments and penetration tests, and handle incident reports.

While Horangi targets SMEs, its all-in-one platform has also helped it to bag regional unicorns such as ride-hailing company Gojek and e-commerce player Bukalapak as clients.

Monk's Hill's Mr Lim tells The Business Times why Horangi is solving a big need for the region's SMEs.

Why did the firm decide to invest in Horangi?

Our decision to invest in Horangi is no different from how we decide to invest in our portfolio companies which boils down to a couple of factors: taking a first principles approach to assessing the investment opportunity, thoroughly understanding the business model, and investing in great founders.

On the first point, cyber security continues to be a large and growing market in Asia. In this region, high-quality security providers are in short supply and can be too costly. Businesses, particularly SMEs, are also ill-equipped with little in-house expertise to prepare itself against cyber incidents.

Horangi has developed a cost-efficient, enterprise-grade cyber security solution that addresses these challenges. They are able to partner with businesses, particularly SMEs, to reliably and quickly adopt more robust cyber security stance.

On the second point, we look for great entrepreneurs who are tackling complex problems that can transform millions of lives. Horangi has a very experienced cyber team, with chief executive Paul Hadjy and chief technology officer Lee Sult at the helm, bringing complementary strengths to the company's operations. Both founders have a strong track record and proven execution capability during their time at Palantir, Grab, Trustwave and Nuix.

Why would companies use Horangi's offerings instead of relying on a more established cyber security solutions provider?

Horangi is challenging the way that traditional cyber security is done. They understand the latest issues that are affecting Asian organisations as a result of the changing Internet and tech landscape which ultimately trickles down and affects all organisations regardless of size.

They have built differentiated capabilities particularly in cloud security, secure software development and crypto security which more established cyber security companies here struggle to provide. They also have the most third-party security certifications in South-east Asia even compared to more established companies.

Horangi believes that a holistic approach of providing an integrated solution focusing on people, process and technology is the only effective one. The shortage of experienced cyber security professionals in the region is acute. Organisations can buy tools, but companies all around the world have tools that they don't obtain value from. That is because without people and expertise, a product alone is zero per cent effective.

That is what Horangi brings: Experienced professionals who can help an organisation set a strategy and execute its plan, getting the most out of its technology.

How does Horangi work with its customers?

Cyber security is not just a technical problem, it's a human problem. It touches all facets of a business. Horangi . . . works with customers to design a cyber security strategy from the ground up to support new and current business processes with scalability in mind, as opposed to deploying solutions that are grafted onto existing business processes that won't be effective or scale over time.

The company takes an integrated approach to keep up with today's dynamic and complex security needs. It may touch upon data compliance and protection, cloud architecture, secure software development, process re-engineering and general upskilling of employees.

Its integrated platform offers a suite of products, all of which are designed to address these issues by collecting security data, analysing across the platform for a holistic view, and allowing organisations to understand their current state and remediations required to protect themselves. The company does not resell off-the-shelf enterprise products and is not a systems integrator.

What are some of the risks and opportunities to building a business in cyber security?

When people think of cyber security, they too often think of a single app or program that can be downloaded to protect against, say, malware. It is a common misconception to think of cyber security as a technical problem.

The risk is that companies often end up with products that will only provide a very thin layer of protection that doesn't really protect the business in the long term. It gives a skewed perception of the threats and the complexities involved to protect their organisation.

Companies need to build their security strategy alongside their business goals by thinking beyond protecting against loss. Horangi believes that there is an extremely relevant opportunity to educate and lead the shift in the changing landscape such as the recent migration of technology into the cloud.

Their team works with enterprises, traditional companies and SMEs that lack cyber security resources to help them transition from an existing on-premise environment to the cloud. This enables them to digitally transform their business, be compliant with regulatory needs and allows them to implement security measures that will scale with their business.

MONK'S HILL VENTURES AT A GLANCE