BUSINESS

Fast-growing cybersecurity firm Red Sift picks Austin for U.S. headquarters

Lori Hawkins
Austin American-Statesman
Red Sift co-founders are Rahul Powar, left, and Randal Pinto. Contributed by Red Sift

Red Sift, a fast-growing London-based cybersecurity company, has picked Austin for its U.S. headquarters.

The move comes after Red Sift announced a $54 million funding round. Red Sift has now raised $69.8 million in funding since its launch in 2015.

“Austin has become a highly competitive market because it has the rich tech talent, business-friendly environment, attractiveness to recruits and deep technology presence, especially within cybersecurity, that startups like Red Sift need to grow," said Mary Anne Gunn, a veteran Austin marketing executive and chief growth officer at Red Sift.

"It was very clear to us as a leadership team that Austin was the place to establish our U.S. home base," Gunn said.

The Austin team is currently operating out of a co-working space, and as the workforce grows and COVID-19 restrictions decline a physical location will be next, she said.

The first step for the Austin headquarters will be building sales and marketing teams followed by additional roles throughout the year, Gunn said.

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Red Sift's cybersecurity products work together to block outbound phishing attacks, analyze the security of inbound communications, and provide domain impersonation defense for company-wide threat protection.

Red Sift has grown its customer base to more than 700, and expects to double that amount by the end of 2022 with the help of the new funding.

Customers include Domino’s Pizza, ZoomInfo, PageGroup, Wise, Telefónica and Rentokil Initial plc. Red Sift is privately held and does not share specific financial information, but the company said its revenue doubled in 2021.

Red Sift currently has 80 employees and plans to double that by the end of the year. The company has offices in the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia and Braintree, Mass.

In addition to the Austin headquarters and accelerated hiring plans, Red Sift will use the new money for product development and to expand operations across the Asia Pacific, Europe and Middle East regions. 

Red Sift also unveiled its newest product, called OnDomain, which enables security personnel to quickly shut down phishing sites and discover legitimate but unsecured domains while defending their brands, and those within their supply chains, against abuse and damage to their reputations.

OnDomain, which is now in preview mode and is expected to launch in the second quarter, will join Red Sift's suite of products that secure outbound and inbound email.

"It has never been more important for organizations to successfully communicate with and ensure the trust of their employees, vendors, and customers,” said Rahul Powar, co-founder and CEO of Red Sift.

“To be a genuine partner to our customers, we must help them protect against multiple interconnected threat vectors. As a result, we built a platform that enables rapid iterations across multiple products that all share a solid, enterprise-ready foundation," he said.

Austin has attracted a number of tech companies amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Among them is tractor company John Deere, which last month announced plans for an office on South Congress Avenue, as part of its agriculture technology team, which will aim to develop products to help farmers be more profitable, sustainable and better able to tackle farming's challenges.

Illinois-based John Deere executives said the Austin facility will allow the company to connect with local universities, startups and incubators and to leverage the area's technology community as it looks to innovate in areas including precision agriculture, automation and autonomy. The company has been taking advantage of a similar ecosystem in the San Francisco Bay area since 2017, and last year expanded to open a tech office in Chicago.

In Austin, the company's teams will be especially focused on software and data. Julian Sanchez, John Deere's director of emerging technology, said some teams will be focused on developing software used in autonomous tractors that helps tractors use data from the cloud and GPS signals to take a precise and specific path.

"Everything from a data scientist to cloud architects that are able to build piping for data, are critical skills and talent," Sanchez said.

American-Statesman reporter Kara Carlson contributed to this report.