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Cybersecurity Firm Bishop Fox Raises $75M for Continuous Penetration Testing

Credit: Bishop Fox

Offensive security firm Bishop Fox has raised $75 million in Series B funding from Carrick Capital Partners. A business valuation was not disclosed.

Bishop Fox, a Top 250 MSSP, was founded in 2005. The Tempe, Arizona-based company has 363 employees listed on LinkedIn.

Bishop Fox will leverage the funding to hire more offensive security experts and further enhance Cosmos -- the company's continuous penetration testing platform.

Demand for such services remains robust. Indeed,  The worldwide penetration testing market is expected to reach $3.1 billion by 2027 -- which represents as 12% compound growth rate (CAGR), according to ResearchandMarkets.

The big twist? Unlike traditional pentesting systems, Bishop Fox's approach is continuous and largely automated.

What Is Cosmos Continuous Penetration Platform?

Cosmos executes more than 2.3 billion operations and identifies over 13,000 exposures every week, Bishop Fox asserts. Crunch the math, and the continuous penetration testing platform can save security teams more than 5,000 hours per year in vulnerability identification and triage, and reduce the time to remediate critical vulnerabilities by 82%, the company asserts. Key Bishop Fox customers include Google, Equifax, John Deere, Sonos and Zoom, among others.

Demand for Cosmos allowed Bishop Fox to triple Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in 2021. Moreover, bookings rose more than 50% in Q1 of 2022 compared to Q1 of 2021. Still, actual dollar figures were not disclosed.

Bishop Fox previously raised $25 million in Series A funding in 2019 from ForgePoint Capital. ForgePoint remains an investor in the business.

Bishop Fox Funding: Executive Perspectives

In a prepared statement about the funding, Bishop Fox CEO Vinnie Liu said:

“This capital will fuel additional innovation in our Cosmos platform, investment in our people, and expansion of Bishop Fox Academy. By further developing the best technology and talent in the industry, we will continue to define the future of offensive security. Additionally, the funding will enable us to accelerate our international expansion, extending our expertise to help even more organizations defend forward. We’re excited to partner with Carrick, an investor who shares our vision and mission.”

Added Carrick Managing Director Chris Wenner:

“Bishop Fox has one of the best reputations with customers we have ever come across, and the highest quality solutions and tech-enabled services in the cybersecurity industry. The combination of their world-class security operators, unique process, and Cosmos technology platform has enabled them to continuously improve the security posture of complex, global enterprises at scale. We are excited to partner with them to extend their leadership position and innovation in offensive security.”

Concluded Will Lin, managing director of Forgepoint Capital:

"It has been a pleasure to partner with Bishop Fox on their extraordinary journey. Their demonstrated commitment to comprehensive and continuous security innovation amidst changing customer needs and the evolving threat landscape have made them the solution of choice for modern organizations, and why they are the leader in offensive security. We're excited to continue our partnership and to welcome Chris and Carrick to the board of directors."

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.