Arvind Parthasarathi

Profile

The Out-of-Band Thinker

When a cyberattack shuts down your network, your email, your Slack, your ticketing system - what do you actually do? Arvind Parthasarathi built a company to answer that question. And then he raised $55 million to prove the answer was worth having.

The product is called CYGNVS. The insight behind it is almost embarrassingly simple: most organizations have no plan for operating when their tools are unavailable. They improvise. They scramble. They use personal phones and WhatsApp threads. Regulators get notified late. Lawyers get looped in later. The chain of custody for decisions evaporates.

Parthasarathi watched this happen enough times - across enough industries, enough incident post-mortems, enough conversations with CISOs - that he decided the problem wasn't awareness. The problem was infrastructure. Organizations needed a command center that existed outside their normal environment. Out-of-band. Ready to spin up the moment the network went dark.

CYGNVS emerged from stealth in January 2023 with $55M in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Stone Point Ventures and EOS Venture Partners joined the round. The platform already served enterprise customers before the announcement. By 2025, that number had grown to over 2,500 organizations.

This was not Parthasarathi's first company. It was not his second. And the pattern across all three is consistent: he finds a problem at the intersection of data and organizational risk, builds a systematic solution, and eventually hands the keys to a strategic acquirer who needs what he built.

The worst time to put together a plan is in the moment when it's needed most. Create a cyber response plan that is readily accessible, concise and easy to navigate during a crisis.

- Arvind Parthasarathi, Founder & CEO, CYGNVS

CYGNVS

The Out-of-Band Command Center

A guided cyber crisis readiness and response platform. 45+ prebuilt playbooks, 70+ regulatory reporting templates spanning SEC, GDPR, CCPA and global jurisdictions. Works when everything else doesn't.

$55M

Series A Funding

2,500+

Customer Orgs

45+

Prebuilt Playbooks

70+

Reporting Templates

a16z Backed Stone Point Ventures EOS Ventures IIT Madras MIT

Track Record

Three Companies. Three Acquisitions.

Parthasarathi's career has a particular shape. He identifies a systemic problem at the edge of enterprise technology and risk, builds a platform solution, scales it to institutional credibility, and exits. Then he finds the next problem.

Exit 1 • ~2017

Cyence

Cyber risk analytics platform that quantified the financial impact of cybersecurity events. Built for insurers and enterprises trying to price cyber exposure. Acquired by Guidewire Software (NYSE: GWRE). The question it answered: how much does a breach actually cost?

Exit 2 • ~2020

YarcData

Platform for cyber data discovery - making sense of large, complex, connected datasets relevant to security investigations. Merged with Cray supercomputing and eventually acquired by Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPE). The question it answered: what is the data actually telling you?

Current • 2021 - Present

CYGNVS

The out-of-band command center for cyber resilience. Not analytics, not detection - response. The infrastructure that keeps organizations coordinated, documented, and compliant during the breach itself. $55M raised. 2,500+ enterprise customers. The question it answers: what do you do when the network is gone?

The Career Arc

From Data to Danger: A Silicon Valley Story

Parthasarathi's path runs through some of the canonical addresses of enterprise technology. IIT Madras for computer science. MIT for the master's degree. Oracle in the late 1990s when enterprise data infrastructure was just beginning to take shape. Then Informatica, where he rose to Senior Vice President and General Manager of Master Data Management, leading a global team building analytics solutions for large organizations.

The Informatica chapter is often overlooked in profiles that jump straight to the startup years, but it matters. Running a division at a public company - at scale, with customers and P&L responsibility - is a different education than building from zero. Parthasarathi had both.

When he founded YarcData, he was already asking the question that would define his next decade: what happens when data complexity gets weaponized? When the sheer volume and connectivity of organizational data becomes both an asset and a liability? That thread runs through all three ventures.

Cyence took the risk-quantification angle: if you can model a cyber event as a financial risk, you can price it, insure it, and manage it. Guidewire acquired the company because that capability was central to the future of insurance technology. The acquisition validated the thesis - but Parthasarathi had already moved on to the next problem.

CYGNVS represents a third evolution. Not "how much will this cost?" or "what does the data say?" but "what do you actually do at 2 AM when your network is compromised and you need to coordinate a global response team across time zones, generate a regulator-ready report, and document every decision for future litigation?" That is the CYGNVS problem.

Career Timeline

1992-1996

B.S. Computer Science, Indian Institute of Technology Madras

1996-1998

M.S. Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Late 1990s

Early career at Oracle Corporation in data technology

2000s

SVP & GM of Master Data Management, Informatica (NYSE: INFA)

~2012

Founded YarcData - cyber data discovery platform; merged with Cray, later acquired by HPE

~2015

Founded Cyence - cyber risk analytics; acquired by Guidewire Software

2020-2021

Founded CYGNVS - out-of-band cyber crisis command center

Jan 2023

CYGNVS emerges from stealth with $55M Series A, Andreessen Horowitz leading

2024

Keynote speaker at 29th Annual Stanford Directors' College

2025

Named 2025 Cybersecurity CEO of the Year; CYGNVS wins three Cybersecurity Excellence Awards

The Framework

5 Rules for the Breach You Haven't Had Yet

Parthasarathi has distilled his thinking on organizational cyber resilience into a repeatable framework. The rules are obvious in retrospect. Most companies learn them the hard way.

Arvind's Cyber Resilience Framework

01

Develop a plan - before you need it. A concise, navigable response document with clear roles and action items. The plan you build under pressure is not a plan.

02

Practice and update regularly - tabletop exercises build muscle memory. A plan that has never been rehearsed is a document, not a capability.

03

Build organization-wide culture - cybersecurity is not a security team problem. Every employee in the chain-of-custody matters during a breach.

04

Use secure, out-of-band networks - execute breach response on systems completely separate from potentially compromised infrastructure.

05

Organize documentation - maintain detailed records for regulatory, investor, insurance, and legal requirements from minute one.

Recognition

Achievements

01

2025 Cybersecurity CEO of the Year Cybersecurity Excellence Awards - among the industry's highest peer-recognition honors for security leadership

02

Three Cybersecurity Excellence Awards (2025) CYGNVS took three separate awards in a single year, validating both the product and the leadership

03

Stanford Directors' College Speaker (2024) Invited to address the 29th Annual Stanford Directors' College - one of the leading governance forums for corporate board directors

04

$55M Series A from Andreessen Horowitz a16z's cybersecurity thesis is selective; backing CYGNVS placed Parthasarathi in their portfolio of market-defining infrastructure plays

05

Cyber Crossroads - Founder & Director Pro bono nonprofit coordinating cybersecurity research across nine universities globally - defining standards of care for the field

Foundation

IIT to MIT to Sand Hill Road

The IIT Madras-to-MIT pipeline is one of the more reliable channels of talent into Silicon Valley's enterprise software scene. Parthasarathi ran it in the early-to-mid 1990s, landing in the Bay Area as the modern data infrastructure industry was being assembled from scratch.

His academic focus on computer science gave him the technical foundation. But it was the enterprise years - at Oracle building data products, then at Informatica leading a global division - that gave him the operational frame for everything that followed. Running a P&L at a public company, managing distributed teams, selling to large enterprises: those are not founder skills you pick up at a startup.

By the time he founded YarcData, he was operating with an unusual combination of technical depth, enterprise credibility, and genuine insight into how large organizations manage (and mismanage) their data. That combination - not just the technology - is what made each subsequent company fundable and acquirable.

The nonprofit work at Cyber Crossroads adds another dimension. Coordinating cybersecurity research across nine universities, on a pro bono basis, while simultaneously running a venture-backed startup is either a sign of genuine conviction about the field's importance or an extraordinary tolerance for workload. Almost certainly both.

IIT Madras

B.S. Computer Science

1992-1996 • Chennai, India

MIT

M.S. Computer Science

1996-1998 • Cambridge, MA

Non-Profit Founder

Cyber Crossroads

A collaborative of cybersecurity researchers from nine universities worldwide, working to define standards of care for the industry. Founded and directed pro bono by Parthasarathi alongside his commercial ventures. Technical Advisory Council member of Allen Institute of Brain Sciences. Board of Trustees, Center for Excellence in Education.

Platform Deep Dive

When the Network Goes Dark

The product insight behind CYGNVS is this: every enterprise has an incident response plan. Almost none of them can actually execute it when a breach takes the network offline.

Your ticketing system is on the compromised network. Your Slack is on the compromised network. Your email is on the compromised network. Your documented playbooks are on the compromised network. So is your list of who to call, who to notify, and which regulators require disclosure within 72 hours.

CYGNVS lives outside all of that. It's a separate environment - out-of-band - with pre-loaded playbooks, pre-configured team structures, pre-built regulatory reporting templates, and mobile access. When the breach happens, the command center is already standing by. Teams mobilize. Workflows activate. The chain of custody for every decision is automatically documented. Regulators can be notified on time, with accurate, pre-formatted reports.

The platform covers the full incident lifecycle: prepare, practice, respond, report. The "practice" component - tabletop simulations and cyber crisis exercises - is where Parthasarathi talks about building "muscle memory." Organizations that have rehearsed their response don't improvise. They execute.

The customer base spans enterprises that carry real cyber risk: financial services, healthcare, critical infrastructure, technology companies with valuable IP. CYGNVS serves as the integration layer between their security teams, legal teams, finance teams, and external providers - all coordinated in one out-of-band space.

Prepare

45+ Prebuilt Playbooks

Role-specific incident workflows, custom incident plans, pre-built and customizable response protocols for common breach scenarios

Practice

Tabletop Simulations

Cyber crisis simulation exercises, muscle memory training, tabletop exercises that stress-test response plans before a real incident

Respond

Out-of-Band Command Center

Real-time collaboration, mobile team mobilization, incident chain of custody management, vetted external provider coordination

Report

70+ Regulatory Templates

Automated reporting for SEC, GDPR, CCPA and 70+ global jurisdictions. Audit trails. Compliance documentation. Built for the regulator conversation

Media & Press

In the Room Where It Happens

YouTube • 2025

Building CYGNVS: Surviving Cyber Chaos

Parthasarathi discusses the founding story, the gap in enterprise cyber response infrastructure, and where CYGNVS is headed.

Watch on YouTube →

YouTube • Feb 2026

The Stage - Founder & CEO, CYGNVS

A deep conversation on leadership, the evolution of cyber resilience as a category, and the decisions behind building CYGNVS.

Watch on YouTube →

Authority Magazine • 2025

5 Things Every Business Leader Should Do

Parthasarathi's practical framework for cyber defense, distilled for non-security executives and board members responsible for organizational resilience.

Read Article →

Stanford • 2024

29th Annual Stanford Directors' College

Invited speaker at Stanford Law School's flagship governance event for corporate board directors. Parthasarathi addressed cyber resilience as a board-level governance obligation, not just a technical one.

View Speaker Profile →

YouTube • YarcData Era

Arvind Parthasarathi - President, YarcData

An earlier interview from the YarcData period, showing the intellectual continuity across Parthasarathi's three companies and the evolving thesis around data and organizational risk.

Watch on YouTube →

Worth Knowing

Five Details That Don't Make the Press Release

01

The name CYGNVS alludes to the swan - an animal known for moving through murky water with apparent grace. The metaphor for cyber crisis response is intentional and accurate.

02

He runs a pro-bono nonprofit (Cyber Crossroads) coordinating cybersecurity research across nine universities - while simultaneously running a $55M-backed startup. The nonprofit is not a side project.

03

All three of his companies were acquired by publicly-traded strategic buyers: Guidewire (GWRE), Hewlett-Packard (HPE), and - presumably, eventually - whoever needs the CYGNVS thesis built into their platform.

04

The "out-of-band" concept is central to CYGNVS's value proposition: the platform is architected to function independently of your normal infrastructure, precisely because your normal infrastructure will be the target.

05

He serves on the Technical Advisory Council of the Allen Institute of Brain Sciences - a reminder that the IIT/MIT computer science background has applications well beyond enterprise software.

Andreessen Horowitz on CYGNVS

a16z backed CYGNVS because they saw cyber resilience as critical infrastructure, not just another security tool. The bet was on Parthasarathi's track record as much as the product - a founder who had already built and sold two relevant companies.

Read a16z Post →

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