Ivan Novikov is the founder and CEO of Wallarm, an AI-powered API security platform that has raised over $70 million in funding including a $55M Series C in 2025. With 24+ years in cybersecurity, he is recognized as the inventor of memcached injection attacks and a pioneer of SSRF research, having earned bug bounty awards from Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tesla, and Yandex. A Y Combinator S16 alumnus with a physics background from Moscow State University, Novikov transformed hands-on offensive security expertise into a company protecting APIs for enterprises worldwide.
Stepan Ilyin is the Co-Founder and COO of Wallarm, a San Francisco-based API and application security company that raised $55M in Series C funding in 2025. A former whitehat hacker and Bauman Moscow State Technical University graduate, he co-founded Wallarm in 2013 alongside Ivan Novikov and others, with the company graduating from Y Combinator's S16 batch. Wallarm now protects Fortune 500 enterprises with AI-powered API security, real-time threat detection, and CI/CD-integrated vulnerability management. Ilyin has authored over 500 publications on DevSecOps, API security, and AI threat prevention, and is a recognized conference speaker at Black Hat, RSA, and similar venues.