Claroty has announced the opening of a regional headquarters office in Singapore. 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 USD 140 million 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, and with digitalization 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,” says Yaniv Vardi, CEO 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. Such incidents have also made regulators aware that they need to prioritize the security of critical national infrastructure, whether publicly or privately held. Thus 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. Claroty’s remit with existing customers in the region has significantly expanded, as their industrial cybersecurity programs 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,” he adds.
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 says 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, CEO 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.”
