SimSpacea startup that creates digital replicas of organizations’ technology and networking stacks for cyber education has raised $45 million in a funding round led by L2 Point Management.
Bringing the company’s total raised to $70 million, the investment comes at an opportune time for SimSpace, which was completed until about two years ago.
According to co-founder and CEO William Hutchison, SimSpace is on track to hit its annual recurring revenue goal of $50 million by the end of fiscal year 2023. And it’s expanding its client list into the private sector, having signed contracts with US Cyber Defense Command, the FBI and national cyber defense teams in unnamed US allied countries.
“SimSpace was selected by the US Department of Defense to train US Cyberspace Command operators as well as four of the top five US banks,” said Hutchison. “The past two years have challenged our company to find ways to address its expanding customer market, even while we are in one of the most challenging financing environments in years. We had to make difficult decisions and toughen them up.”
SimSpace’s origins lie with the US Cyber Command, where Hutchison designed and led a joint tactical cyber training exercise, Cyber Flag, drawing on the expertise of technical staff Lee Rossey at MIT’s Lincoln Lab. At the time, Rossey was working to create cyber “training suites” to simulate corporate IT production environments and critical infrastructure.
In 2015, Hutchison and Rossey created SimSpace to bring cyber practice and testing technology — combined with an “attack library” and cyber learning content — to the private sector, as well as additional government agencies.
“With SimSpace, because training takes place outside of a company’s network, it’s possible to ‘throw the kitchen sink’ into cyber teams without breaking anything in a real production environment and disrupting vital operations,” said Hutchison. “SimSpace’s unique motion generation capability enables security teams to measure and adjust the effectiveness, recall and accuracy of their security tools.”
Hutchison said SimSpace, which has just over 200 employees today, will be able to “grow profitably” with this latest investment and expand its workforce “modestly.”
L2 Point Managing Partner Kerstin Dittmar had this to add: “SimSpace’s high-fidelity cyber series have gained significant traction with leading companies and national cyber defense organizations. This funding will allow SimSpace to build on its strong momentum and continue to invest in its military-grade capabilities as the company serves an increasingly diverse and advanced customer base.”
