Chris Petersen thought he’d retire after his security company LogRhythm was acquired by Thoma Bravo; instead, he jumped back into the startup world two years later. Now, his new venture, RADICL, is nearing a commercial product launch and just raised a fresh round of funding.

Boulder-based cybersecurity startup RADICL pulled in $9 million in early-stage funding this week to protect small to mid-size businesses in the defense industrial space and those serving critical infrastructure.

After seeing parts of the U.S. government and large companies like Microsoft and Intel get hacked in 2020, Petersen said he was angered and motivated to “get back into the fight” and help companies protect themselves and their information. Shortly after, he and co-founders Matt Petersen and David Graff began building RADICL.

Named a Startup to Watch in 2022, RADICL was bootstrapped for about six months before it raised a $3 million pre-seed round in November 2021. Now, the startup is gaining momentum having launched a limited availability pilot program of its flagship product RADICL XTP.

RADICL XTP is an extended threat protection platform that gives small and mid-size businesses access to enterprise-grade threat protection.

“One of the biggest challenges that these [small and mid-size] companies have is … investing in a security infrastructure and apparatus that has a sophistication able to defend against a very advanced adversary,” said Chris Petersen, CEO of RADICL. “The large enterprises do this by spending millions and millions of dollars. … Small businesses simply cannot do that.”

RADICL offers preventative cybersecurity management and real-time threat management, such as monitoring for threats, investigating potential threats and neutralizing them before damage is done. RADICL also provides security training and compliance management.

“We have a huge vision, which is ultimately to take a building technology platform that allows us to become the security operation team for our customers,” Chris Petersen said. “And because we’re going after the SMB, these companies that are sub 500 employees, we have to find a way to do as affordably for them. … At a very high level, our technology vision is to move security operations into a software powered by artificial intelligence.”

RADICL plans to launch a more generally available platform early next year. It will be sold as an annual subscription service on a per-employee and per-endpoint basis, according to its website.

The recent $9 million round — led by Paladin Capital Group with participation from Boulder-based Access Ventures and Denver-based DA Ventures Seed Fund — closed in July but was made public this week.

The funds helped RADICL finish building its platform and grow its 14-person team. The startup is still adding to its sales team and hiring a compliance consultant.

Chris Petersen said this capital will be used throughout 2024 and into 2025. He anticipates raising another round of funding in the first half of 2025.

RADICL has an office in Boulder on Pearl Street but will soon move into a space just down the road. The company operates on a hybrid model, with in-office days on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.