A group of veterans in security and information technology have teamed up to launch a Dallas cyber security service firm.
Zyston LLC, a security advisory firm founded in May, boasts an executive team that includes the former chief information security officer at Fujitsu, Johnathan Steenland; the former national leader of PwC’s Cyber Breach Response, Remediation and Investigation Practice and and former global CISO at Textron, Richard Dorough; and the former president of brand protection firm Authentix, Craig Stamm. The team has already raised a $3.7 million Series A round of funding from a individual investors including Edward Herring, co-founder of Dallas private equity firm Tailwater Capital, and Randy Brown, managing director of Irving-based Fortress Investment Group. It’s customers include Fujitsu, Capgemini, Bridge2Solutions and Access Insurance.
“The people are here, and the skills are here,” said Stamm, founder and CEO of Zyston. “This is a great market, timing is hot, and geographically, we have the chance to build this into a major player in the industry.”
Zyston offers companies CISO advisory services and delivery services, which provides clients the team to help them execute cyber security strategies. The service company expects most of its clients to range from generating annual revenue of $100 million to $2 billion.
The idea behind a company is to strengthen companies’ newly developed security departments and teams or helping build them from scratch. CISOs are more regularly getting appointed as the importance of cyber security continues to grow. But they’re typically not given much direction on how to lead the strategy from there, Stamm said.
“These CISOs are entering an incredibly challenging environment,” he said. “There’s no program, no process and typically not a team. And there’s not a mentor in place to help them do the job that wasn’t there before.”
Zyston hopes to fill that gap by providing advisory services for the CISO and teams that could either support the CISO or even fill the post if there is no CISO on staff. The company intends to compete in the services space versus the “saturated software market,” Stamm said.
The company was formed after Stamm raised a $630,000 search fund, which gave him the capital to seek a businesses for acquisition. But instead of buying a company, Stamm recognized a hot market and a big opportunity and convinced most of his investors to back his new idea: Zyston.
“When I look at information security, I see a $75 billion market going to $175 billion, double digit growth, and a 10-year tailwind with no slowdown in sight,” he said. “It presents tremendous advantages.”
The team, which includes seven executives, plans to move into its new Dallas offices at One Galleria Tower at the end of the week.
