Zenity, the only governance and cybersecurity platform for Low-Code/No-Code applications, exited stealth mode with a $5 million seed funding round, led by Vertex Ventures and UpWest, and backed by top executives such as the former CISO of Google, Gerhard Eschelbeck, and former CIO of SuccessFactors, Tom Fisher. With Zenity, businesses can promote citizen development and adopt Low-Code/No-Code platforms while avoiding critical data exfiltration or disruption to business continuity.
Today’s digital revolution is powered by platforms that democratize application development and enable rapid quality deliverables. Traditionally, IT and development teams developed applications. Now, teams utilize Low-Code/No-Code platforms such as Salesforce, Microsoft Power Platform, and others to develop applications in minutes. With this new employee independence, CIOs, CISOs, and relevant stakeholders are looking to ensure that business units and citizen developers are free to improve productivity without compromising security. Without governance and security practices, organizations are unintentionally vulnerable to exfiltrating sensitive data or exposing the organization to breaches and ransomware attacks.
“Companies are heavily adopting Low-Code/No-Code, without realizing the risks it employs nor their part in the shared responsibility model,” said Zenity co-founder & CEO Ben Kliger. “We empower CIOs and CISOs to seamlessly govern their Low-Code/No-Code applications and prevent unintentional data leaks, disturbance to business continuity, compliance risks or malicious breaches.”
To provide governance and security for such applications, teams must assess the business logic, security configuration, permissions model, and data flows. Already working with Fortune 500 companies using their platform, Zenity continuously scans every application component identifying security policy violations. This can include vulnerabilities, such as risky 3rd-party components and exfiltration and manipulation threats, including supply chain attacks.
“The challenge is mitigating the risks and security threats associated with Low-Code/No-Code solutions without disturbing the business,” said Tom Fisher, Zenity advisor and former CIO of Oracle, Qualcomm, CTO of eBay. “Zenity provides the perfect combination of governance and security tools with a pro-business approach that helps business developers build with confidence.”
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Ben Kliger and Michael Bargury worked at Microsoft on the Azure and cloud security teams. Michael Bargury, co-founder and CTO of the company, said, “Low-code brings huge ROIs to Fortune 500 companies by democratizing application development and aligning development with the business. However, it also bypasses existing security approaches, making it easy to store sensitive CRM data on personal accounts, share credentials, and execute arbitrary code, allowing attackers to remain hidden while maintaining full control”
These funds will allow them to expand R&D, product, marketing operation, and customer acquisition activities while allowing businesses to experience unprecedented growth, made available by today’s digital revolution.
