A common Silicon Valley pattern emphasizes early fundraising and repeated growth rounds leading to IPO or acquisition. Pukar Hamal founded SecurityPal AI after a previous company raised capital before product-market fit and sold via acqui-hire. Hamal waited until SecurityPal reached $1 million ARR before raising a $21 million Series A. SecurityPal applies AI to accelerate enterprise security due diligence, reducing review times from months to days or hours and lowering transaction costs. The company secured prominent customers. Rising interest rates in 2022 disrupted the venture market and created a cash crisis for the business.
That's the question that Pukar Hamal, founder and CEO of SecurityPal AI, asked himself after raising a $21 million series A round in 2021 and, a year later, almost running out of money. The round was led by David Sacks's Craft Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz's Martin Casado and Okta co-founder Frederic Kerrest. "I started the company back in March of 2020. It's my second company that I founded," he said on TechCrunch's Equity podcast this week.
SecurityPal uses AI to speed enterprise security due diligence, which occurs in every large enterprise transaction when signing new IT contracts. SecurityPal promises to shrink the security review from months to days or even hours, helping companies to save money on the process while closing deals faster. It has big-name customers like Airtable, Figma, LangChain, and Grammarly, among others. But in 2022, he faced a crisis. Interest rates rose and crashed the venture capital market.
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