Cycode is a well-funded startup that gives an end-to-end utility safety posture administration platform — that’s, a instrument that constantly scans code (and the libraries it depends on) for potential safety vulnerabilities all through the software program improvement life cycle after which helps remediate these points. At this time, the corporate introduced that it has acquired Bearer, a static utility safety testing (SAST) startup that focuses on making the developer expertise as easy as attainable whereas nonetheless offering them with important safety suggestions. With its just lately launched AI assistant, Bearer additionally wager on generative AI to recommend code fixes and clarify vulnerabilities.
Bearer raised an $8 million seed spherical led by Alven in 2022. Cycode has raised over $81 million in funding up to now, together with a $56 million Sequence B spherical in 2021. That’s what put the corporate ready to make right this moment’s acquisition, although the 2 corporations didn’t disclose the worth.
As Cycode co-founder and CEO Lior Levy advised me, this acquisition now gives the corporate with the entire capabilities it must turn into a full-fledged utility safety platform. Like so many startups, that’s not essentially what the crew was centered on when Cycode first launched. On the time, Cycode was one of many earlier gamers within the software program provide chain area. At this time, the corporate addresses a far wider vary of assault vectors.
“Day one, we had been centered on what we wished to construct round software program provide chain safety,” he advised me. “However then, as time progressed, we realized that there was further worth that we would have liked to seize. It’s the fitting method to turn into a platform and that is what we’ve heard from prospects. So we adopted and addressed these wants.”
The Cycode and Bearer groups first began speaking final August and stayed in contact after that. Based on Levy, it was Dor Atias, Cycode’s co-founder and VP of R&D, who realized that Bearer’s expertise would properly complement — and full — the bigger startup’s present resolution. “Our mission is to be an entire platform,” Atias mentioned. “The lacking half was a SAST instrument that may be quick and related simply to the Cycode platform. And the Bearer crew invested rather a lot within the mind of the SAST engine — not solely the principles and stuff like that — however the engine itself. I examined it just a few occasions and noticed that it could possibly be built-in simply.”
And that’s what the Cycode crew has already carried out, despite the fact that the deal solely closed final week. Now, Atias mentioned, the crew is the way it can carry that Bearer engine to different components of the platform, too. That features a few of Bearer’s AI options as properly, together with its remediation capabilities. Levy believes that utilizing AI to repair points earlier than they even go into the supply management is one thing akin to the “secret sauce for safety” and can assist scale back the burden on builders and safety groups.
Cycode co-founder Ronen Slavin, the corporate’s CTO, additionally famous that this acquisition suits in properly with the corporate’s give attention to each placing safety and the developer expertise first. “Builders weren’t employed to repair safety points,” he mentioned. “They get annoyed they usually find yourself with false positives. Bearer has the best fee of precision by way of the speed of false positives. By way of GenAI, one of many elements is the context for the remediation that builders get that they wouldn’t get in any other case, which can also be tied to the improved expertise.”
Whereas Bearer nonetheless exists as a stand-alone product for now, Cycode plans to maneuver its prospects over to its platform over time.
“We’re thrilled to be becoming a member of forces with Cycode, an organization that shares our imaginative and prescient for making developer safety a crew sport,” mentioned Bearer CEO Guillaume Montard. “This union marks a crucial milestone in our journey, amplifying our attain and impression to the world’s greatest safety and improvement groups. Collectively, we’re set to proceed redefining the requirements of the entire method to utility safety posture administration.”
