Claroty, an industrial cybersecurity company,1 has opened a regional headquarters office in Singapore, further establishing its presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Under the leadership of Eddie Stefanescu, general manager of Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) at Claroty, the company is experiencing hyper growth in the region, having doubled its client base and achieving 250% growth in revenue year-over-year from the first half (1H) of 2020 to 1H 2021. The company has tripled its headcount in the region over the past year, with hiring occurring across seven countries.
The office opening comes shortly after Claroty’s US$140m in its Series D financial round, which included participation from Temasek. The company raised the round in order to meet rapidly accelerating global demand for the Claroty platform’s visibility, threat detection, risk and vulnerability management, and secure remote access capabilities by expanding into new regions and verticals.
“With most of the region working remotely, demand for digital services in APJ is growing,2 and with digitalisation comes inherent risk. In the industrial world, that risk is particularly high as previously isolated operational technology (OT) networks become more integrated with information technology (IT) networks, and thus exposed to a whole host of cyber threats they were not designed to face,” said Yaniv Vardi, chief executive officer of Claroty. “Our expansion in APJ is a reflection of this growing demand as well as the success we’ve achieved to date in the region, and we look forward to working with our strong ecosystem of partners to continue building upon this success.”
Spending on OT cybersecurity in the region is increasing as large-scale cyber incidents impacting critical industrial operations have become more pronounced.3 Such incidents have also made regulators aware that they need to prioritise the security of critical national infrastructure, whether publicly or privately held. Therefore, regional agencies are assessing how they will mandate that incident-reporting procedures and cybersecurity practices be installed and required of companies which operate in certain sectors, especially those in energy, oil and gas, transportation, finance, healthcare, and food and beverage.4 Claroty’s remit with existing customers in the region has significantly expanded, as their industrial cybersecurity programmes continue to mature.
“It takes specialist knowledge and experience to effectively implement cybersecurity for OT networks, and what differentiates Claroty is the depth of visibility we have into those networks when our platform is implemented,” said Stefanescu. “That’s why public and private entities, including Coca-Cola EuroPacific Partners (Australia, Pacific, Indonesia), BHP, IRPC Public Company Limited, and Aboitiz Power, are investing in Claroty.”
According to Stefanescu: “Across Australia and Asia, Claroty is a strong partner for companies in the oil and gas, utilities, manufacturing, water, and electrical power industries, but our customer base is broadening. In the past year, we have also experienced strong growth in the food and beverage sector, and in the pharmaceutical sector for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.”
Vardi said that the company secures every connected device within the four walls of an industrial site, including OT, Internet of Things (IoT), and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) assets.
Stefanescu qualified this for the APJ region, saying: “Throughout the pandemic, with increasing remote connections, we expanded our capabilities to help our customers secure their IoT devices within the bounds of the industrial environment.”
“Temasek invested in Claroty because the team understands critical infrastructure cybersecurity better than anyone in the industry,” said Rashmy Chatterjee, chief executive officer of Temasek’s cybersecurity platform ISTARI and Claroty board member. “We are delighted to see the company expand its presence in APJ, as the largest enterprises in the region – and the world – continue to rapidly adopt The Claroty Platform to protect their operational and production environments.”
Backed and adopted by leading industrial automation vendors, Claroty grew its partner base in the region by 70% over the past year, with partners including KPMG, Yokogawa Engineering Asia, Tesserent, SiS International Limited and Inflow Technologies.
References
1 Claroty is headquartered in New York City and has a presence in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America, with deployments on all seven continents.
2 MarketsandResearch: Global OT cybersecurity market will be worth $18.13 billion by 2023. Asia-Pacific’s OT cybersecurity market is projected to grow at a higher CAGR in the forecast period. Manufacturing and mining will be the largest sectors with a strong growth trajectory over the study period. The impact of COVID-19 will be significant across these sectors and other key segments, including oil and gas, transportation and smart cities, and power verticals from 2020 to 2023.
3 Spending on ASEAN cybersecurity has also increased, with industries such as telecommunications, finance, energy and technology identified as targets of persistent threat actors.
4 Example: Singapore’s Cyber Security Agency (CSA) has drafted a Master Plan for OT cyber resilience, and are installing expert panels to advise them.
