Gili Raanan - Cybersecurity Investment Playbook

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Colossus

Investing, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My guest today is Gili Raanan. Gili is the founder of Cyberstarts, a VC firm focused on cybersecurity and the world’s first VC that is majorly backed by cyber entrepreneurs. Cyberstarts’ $50 million dollar first fund exploded to close to $2 billion in just three years. Gili describes cybersecurity today as "the perfect storm" where global conflicts and AI advancements are creating unprecedented threats. He talks about Cyberstarts' "Sunrise" methodology, which uniquely identifies customer pain points before building solutions. We discuss a focus on finding resilient talent, overcoming personal adversity, the evolution of the cybersecurity landscape, and Google's recent acquisition of Wiz, as Cyberstarts was one of Wiz's earliest investors. Please enjoy my discussion with Gili Raanan. Subscribe to Colossus Review. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Ramp. Ramp’s mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Ramp is the fastest-growing FinTech company in history, and it’s backed by more of my favorite past guests (at least 16 of them!) than probably any other company I’m aware of. Go to Ramp.com/invest to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. – This episode is brought to you by AlphaSense. AlphaSense has completely transformed the research process with cutting-edge AI technology and a vast collection of top-tier, reliable business content. Imagine completing your research five to ten times faster with search that delivers the most relevant results, helping you make high-conviction decisions with confidence. Invest Like the Best listeners can get a free trial now at Alpha-Sense.com/Invest and experience firsthand how AlphaSense and Tegus help you make smarter decisions faster. – This episode is brought to you by Ridgeline. Ridgeline has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. I think this platform will become the standard for investment managers, and if you run an investing firm, I highly recommend you find time to speak with them. Head to ridgelineapps.com to learn more about the platform. ----- Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes: (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best (00:06:52) AI's Impact on Cybersecurity (00:07:51) Offensive and Defensive Tactics (00:09:32) The Future of Cybersecurity (00:15:42) The First Fund: A Legendary Success (00:17:36) Building a Successful Cybersecurity Company (00:28:24) The Sunrise Methodology (00:31:58) Reversing the Startup Process (00:32:53) The Sunrise Methodology (00:33:17) Identifying Market Pain Points (00:34:57) The Importance of Customer Actions (00:36:58) From Conversations to Software Development (00:38:57) The Role of Simulations in Startup Success (00:40:12) Fundraising and Valuation Strategies (00:42:08) Pricing and Market Dynamics (00:46:16) The Value of Superpowers in Founders (00:50:10) Google’s Acquisition of Wiz (01:07:24) Personal Resilience and Tragedy (01:10:30) Future of Cybersecurity and AI (01:12:25) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Done For Gili

Transcript

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0:00.0	Something I speak about frequently on Invest Like the Best is the idea of life's work.
0:04.5	A more fun way to think about it is that I'm looking for maniacs on a mission.
0:08.5	This is the basis for our investment firm, Positive Sum, and it's the reason why I'm so enthusiastic about our presenting sponsor, Ramp.
0:15.0	Not only are the founders, Karim and Eric, life's work-level founders, certainly maniacs on a mission.
0:20.0	They have created a product that is effectively an unlock for founders and finance team to do more of their life's work
0:25.5	by streamlining financial operations, saving everyone their most precious resource time.
0:30.9	Ramp has built a command and control system for corporate cards and expense management.
0:35.1	You can issue cards, manage approvals, make vendor payments of all kinds, and even automate
0:39.4	closing your books all in one place.
0:41.7	Speaking from my own experience using Ramp for my business, the product is wildly intuitive,
0:46.4	simplistic, and makes life so much easier that you'll feel bad for any company who hasn't
0:50.4	yet made the switch.
0:52.5	The Ramp team is relentless, and the product continues to evolve to save you time
0:56.0	that you would never have dreamed of getting back.
0:58.2	To me, there is nothing more interesting
1:00.0	than technologies that reduce friction for other entrepreneurs
1:03.7	to be able to build the thing that they want to.
1:06.2	So much attention has gone to cloud computing,
1:08.8	APIs, and other ways of making life easy for founders,
1:12.6	what Ramp has done and is doing is build yet another set of tools in this category.
1:18.0	To get started, go to ramp.com. Cards issued by Celtic Bank and Sutton Bank, member FDIC,
1:23.9	terms and conditions apply. As an investor, staying ahead of the game means having the right tools, and I want to share
	...

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