Ottawa-based Interset ushered in the new year with a change of location for its office and the promise of even more growth, CEO Dale Quayle said Thursday.
The security analytics firm doubled its customer base in 2015, he said, a pace it expects to match if not exceed this year. That meant it was time to move from its former headquarters on Fitzgerald Road in Bells Corners to a larger space in Kanata.
“We were bursting at the seams, so we just needed to have more room to expand,” Mr. Quayle said. “Engineers are more effective when they are not sitting literally on top of each other.”
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After its Dec. 18 move, the firm is now settled in at its new office at 411 Legget Dr. in Kanata, “a beautiful Class-A space” with plenty of room for expansion, he said. At 9,000 square feet, it is more than twice the size of the old office.
Interset secured $10 million in venture capital funding in March 2015, helping the firm enhance its visibility in the marketplace. Mr. Quayle said the company also benefited from a surge in demand for cybersecurity products.
The cybersecurity market is worth between $70 billion and $80 billion US, he said, with much of that spent on protecting the perimeter of a network. But that trend is changing, he added.
“(Customers) now need solutions like ours that, using advanced mathematics, can identify risky behaviours before humans can identify it themselves and that’s what our technology is all about. We take existing data and give our customers a risk profile that is really unprecedented in the marketplace today,” Mr. Quayle said.
Security attacks happen in all industries, he said, meaning the firm has been able to add clients in sectors such as government to its existing customer base of life sciences, high-tech and financial companies.
“People aren’t attacking just to be malicious and to create problems,” he said. “They’re trying to steal stuff. That hits every industry from banking to pharmaceuticals to government.”
The “broad adoption” of Interset’s solution was a 2015 highlight for Mr. Quayle, and while he couldn’t go into details, he said his company helped some “pretty big customers” protect themselves from some “pretty nasty attacks.”
Another “extraordinary customer” will come on board in the next month or so, he said, promising more details when the official announcement is made.
With a current headcount approaching 50, Mr. Quayle expects the company to double that number in the next 12 to 18 months.
“We’re making investments in marketing, sales, we’re expanding our campaign footprint,” he said. “We have to help our customers find us, and we’ll do that through a number of shows and events we’ll be doing over the next year or so.”
While Mr. Quayle expects the firm’s customer base to double again this year, the number of clients is not his main concern.
“For any company that is building, the key metric is the success of the customers that buy our software,” he said. “You’re building the foundation for your home, so you pay very close attention to making sure they are successful with the solution.”
