Two years after stepping away from the company he helped build, LogRhythm co-founder Chris Petersen is back in charge of a Boulder startup providing military-grade cybersecurity to small and medium-sized businesses.
RADICL Defense recently emerged from stealth with a $3 million seed funding round that will help the company develop its first product in the cyberspace.
Petersen brings decades of experience to his new company, having spent more than 16 years at Boulder-based security company LogRhythm, leading the company through its 2018 acquisition by Thoma Bravo. Prior to that deal, LogRhythm had raised at least $121 million from previous equity investors.
Due to family medical issues, Petersen decided to step away from his chief technology officer role at LogRhythm in 2019. At first, he intended to continue working part-time in the business, but that quickly changed.
“Once I went part-time, I realized I was exhausted. It had been 16 years of all-in, maximum effort and once I let off the pedal a little bit, I realized I was quite tired,” he said.
He intended to take a sabbatical, trying his hand in investing, or launching a startup studio to help mold future companies. He also became involved in Colorado State University’s entrepreneurship program. During that time away, one thing kept nagging at him.
“I kept coming back to what I really love, which is creating products. That is the only thing that got my juices stirring,” he said. “What really got me fully fired up and off the sidelines was the SolarWinds hack.”
In late 2020, a Russian-linked hacking group was blamed for a large-scale software breach that impacted hundreds of private companies and government organizations and wasn’t discovered until months after it began. The group of hackers focused their attack on SolarWinds' remote IT management software.
Petersen said this unprecedented cyber event was the primary motivator for his return to the industry.
“As somebody who’s been in the industry for a long time, I was pretty outraged that hundreds of companies could be compromised by the same attack and go unnoticed for seven months. I was a bit embarrassed for us as a cybersecurity industry,” he said.
From there, Petersen teamed up with David Graff, a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and defense industry executive, and Matt Petersen, a founding LogRhythm engineer, to found RADICL Defense earlier this year.
The company is creating a solution to protect the information systems of small and medium sized businesses and contractors that are involved in sensitive national defense work. While capabilities in the space have grown immensely since LogRhythm’s founding in 2002, Petersen said security efforts for most small businesses are left to one employee.
“We need to figure out how we’re going to build something that can stand up against an adversary that’s bringing Navy Seal or Special Forces-like capabilities against companies that maybe have one person to defend their network,” he said.
As it builds its initial product, RADICL Defense announced a $3 million seed funding this week that was led by Access Venture Partners, with participation from the Cyber Mentor Fund and strategic angel investors. In addition to building out its platform, Petersen said the four-person team will likely double in the next two months.
Feeling rejuvenated and motivated by his new venture, Petersen is leaning on his LogRhythm experience to guide the company forward. First and foremost, he said, is building a strong, mission-based culture and developing a reliable product.
“We’re not selling a magic box full of fairytales about how we can make you magically secure, because cybersecurity is a hard problem,” he said.