Cybersecurity Spending , RSA Conference , RSA Conference Featured
How Cybersecurity Startups Can Weather the Economic Storm
Momentum Cyber's Dino Boukouris on Startup Pain Following Cuts to Innovation Budget
Organizations have taken a hatchet to their "innovation budget" amid economic headwinds, making it difficult for startups to hit their sales projections, said Momentum Cyber's Dino Boukouris.
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Longer sales cycles for early-stage startups have resulted in them burning through cash faster than anticipated, forcing them to either lay off employees, raise capital at a reduced he said, founders can exit the market by selling their startup to a financial or strategic acquirer, often at a pretty steep discount (see: How the Economic Downturn Has Affected Security Funding, M&A).
"[The spending cuts] tend to skew heavily toward the startup ecosystem," Boukouris said. "Those are the innovators, and those are the ones that have the latest and greatest technologies. It doesn't really affect the Palos and CrowdStrikes and others of the world as much."
In this video interview with Information Security Media Group at RSA Conference 2023, Boukouris also discusses:
- Why some startups are opting to exit the market rather than raise capital;
- Why the size of cybersecurity M&A deals has decreased over the past year;
- Why investors are focusing heavily on business fundamentals, not vision.
Boukouris has spent over 17 years in the technology industry advising CEOs and boards of companies at all stages of their life cycle. He has expertise in M&A, cybersecurity, finance, strategy, operations, entrepreneurship, and venture capital and private equity.
