smb-security
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Guardz Tried Selling Cybersecurity to Small Businesses. The Smarter Business Was Selling Through Their IT People
The startup's first route to market sputtered. Its 2023 pivot to MSPs turned that miss into a useful lesson: for small-business security, the trusted reseller may matter as much as the software.
The Firewall Company That Bet Everything on the Middle
For 30 years, WatchGuard has sold security to the companies too small for Palo Alto and too serious to go without - and built its whole business around the partners who install it.
Upfort
Upfort (formerly Paladin Cyber) is a San Francisco-based platform that unifies turnkey cybersecurity with cyber insurance, making cyber risk easy to manage and simple to insure for small and medium-sized businesses. Its Upfort Shield suite layers AI-driven email and web protection, risk monitoring, and security awareness training, while its insurance arm partners with leading carriers to embed coverage for ransomware, wire fraud, and data breaches - sold through brokers and MGAs rather than direct.
Huntress
Huntress is a Maryland-based managed cybersecurity company that brings enterprise-grade protection to small and mid-sized businesses and the IT providers who serve them. Founded in 2015 by three former NSA cyber operators, it pairs lightweight software agents with a 24/7 human-led, AI-assisted Security Operations Center to detect, investigate, and remediate threats across endpoints, identities, Microsoft 365, and logs. What began with $100,000 in DEF CON Capture the Flag winnings has grown into a cybersecurity unicorn protecting roughly 150,000 businesses and surpassing $100M in annual recurring revenue.
At-Bay
At-Bay is an InsurSec company that sells cyber insurance alongside the security tools, monitoring, and incident response needed to actually prevent claims. By bundling underwriting with active risk management, the company has positioned itself as both insurer and security partner for small and mid-sized businesses.