RSAC INNOVATION SANDBOX FINALISTS SPUR INGENUITY IN SECURITY: CISOs SHOULD LOOK TO FINALISTS FOR FUTURE DIRECTION AND INVESTMENT

On Monday April 20, 2015 the biggest security event in the USA, the RSA Conference, kicks off with the ever popular Innovation Sandbox event. This event brings in hundreds of submissions from security startup companies around the world all hoping to make the top 10 finalist list, and eventually be declared the winner. The Innovation Sandbox has been running for the last ten years resulting in a great quantity of security startup data to analyze along with some very notable winning companies.

Previous sandbox winners include SourceFireImpervaAlertEnterprise and most recently Red Owl Analytics. Many security companies have been declared finalists, fared well with additional funding, and found reasonable financial success, specifically acquisition. The graph to the left shows the acquisition trends for Innovation Sandbox finalists since 2009. Security start up success is on the rise and the Innovation Sandbox is there to build on that success.

Looking at the Innovation Sandbox data can give us some interesting insights into security market trends including, specific technology interest, investment points, and future product direction. Rick HollandJennie Duong, and I (Tyler Shields) conducted a high level analysis of a few of the salient data points surrounding the Innovation Sandbox companies. With the help of David Kaiser (RTI International), we were able to tease out some interesting predictions that CISOs and CEOS should be aware of. When technology innovation is rapid, executives must understand what that vendor landscape looks like today, tomorrow, and 3-5 years in the future. By monitoring the Innovation Sandbox results its possible to have a leg up on the latest product direction and trends. 

Special thank you to crunchbase.com for providing access to their great startup detail database.

Click here to read our latest report on the RSAC Innovation Sandbox: http://forr.com/RSACSandbox