Meet Bastion, a French startup that was created in October 2022 to help small businesses address cybersecurity risks without too much complexity. Created by former Palantir employees, the company has already raised $2.8 million.
What sets Bastion apart from other cybersecurity startups is that it wants to be your first and last cybersecurity subscription. It includes several different products that revolve around cybersecurity risks with a software-as-a-service approach.
First, Global Founders Capital, Kima Ventures, and Motier Ventures invested in the company, as well as a number of informal investors, including Denis Duverne, Joshua Motta, Renaud Deraison, and Gaëlle Olivier.
At Palantir, the four co-founders Arnaud Fournier, Arnaud Drizard, Sébastien Duc and Robin Costé were already working on cybersecurity in one form or another. Some of them were part of a small team in charge of cybersecurity that excludes governments and public administrations. One of them was in charge of anti-fraud deals for large banks and insurance companies.
“Companies we talk to tell us, ‘We have one insurance broker, one accountant, why would we have multiple cybersecurity products?’” co-founder and CEO Arnaud Fournier told me.
When you want to lock your bike in a big city, you can use three different locks to make sure the wheels are secure and the bike is attached to a post. This way you can be almost 100% sure that your bike will not be stolen.
Or you can buy a proper U-lock to make sure you are more secure than most bikes. And this is Bastion.
Essentially, the ideal Bastion customer just wants to make sure that their business is secure and that there isn’t a big vulnerability that could end up creating a big mess down the road.
Right now, Bastion has four different modules. First, the startup runs phishing simulation tests because many security issues stem from employees handing over credentials. With this training module, Bastion compete with riot.
Second, Bastion scans your infrastructure and web applications to make sure your attack surface is as small as possible. The company gives you a list of fixes to improve your settings.
Third, Bastion scans and protects endpoints such as employee laptops. “We provide an EDR solution, which is kind of an enhanced antivirus tool with a team watching what’s going on in real time,” Fournier said. EDR stands for ‘endpoint detection and response’. For this product, Bastion partners with a white-label EDR provider.
And finally, Bastion wants to help companies monitor incoming emails with its fourth module. At this time, customers can forward suspicious emails to find out for sure if it is a legitimate email or not. At some point, the startup also wants to help you set up filters on incoming emails so they don’t even show up in your employees’ inboxes.
“For some of these products, we found that existing products in the markets were too expensive for what they offered. We take advantage of the open source building blocks or rebuild 80% of what is needed,” Fournier said.
Bastion offers the complete suite for around €10 per employee per month. This isn’t cheap, but some businesses may choose to subscribe to a portion of what Bastion has to offer.
Interestingly, the company does not plan to sell its product directly to small businesses. Instead, the company partners with outsourced security service providers, banks, insurance companies, and more.
In the coming months, Bastion plans to build a network of partners who are already helping small and medium-sized businesses and may also start selling Bastion to their own customers. And, of course, there will also be new features and product enhancements.
Image Credits: Bastion
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