StackHawk, the Denver-based bug-detecting service, hires developer of open-source project Zed Attack Proxy

Published July 15, 2020

StackHawk, the Denver-based software startup offering service to detect and fix security bugs, is doubling down on its support for the popular open-source OWASP Zed Attack Proxy web app security scanner by bringing on board its founder, Simon Bennetts.

At StackHawk, Bennetts will continue to focus on the development of the open-source project, which the company said is among the world’s most frequently used security scanning tools.

StackHawk already uses the open-source project for its underlying scanning technology and has built a business by layering on security test automation, integrations with development tools and functionality for new development paradigms.

“Since founding ZAP, the vision has always been to deliver application security to developers,” Bennetts said, in a statement. “While the project has been widely adopted by security teams and pen testers, I’m excited to work with a team dedicated to delivering our original vision of AppSec for devs and that also believes in growing the open source community.”

StackHawk founders Joni Klippert, Scott Gerlach and Ryan Severns and Bennetts found common cause in their belief that bug-editing tools are too often built for external enterprise security teams instead of the developers who are closest to the apps they’re building.

“Simon’s work on the ZAP project has both changed the security and open-source worlds for the better. It became clear that we were highly aligned in our mission to bring application security into the hands of developers,” said Klippert, the chief executive and founder of StackHawk, in a statement. “Simon joining the StackHawk team provides an exciting opportunity to invest more in the ZAP open source project, while also building capabilities that make it easy for enterprise development teams to streamline AppSec into their CI/CD pipelines.”

In the eleven years since Bennetts first began working on ZAP, the OWASP Foundation-incorporated security scanner has become popular among the developer community for its dynamic application security testing.

After the hire, StackHawk said that nothing much will change. Bennetts will continue to work on the open-source project while the company will continue to build functionality around the scanner.

The Denver-based company has raised nearly $5 million in financing from investors including Flybridge, Costanoa Ventures, Matchstick Ventures and Foundry Group .

What to consider before publishing your diversity memo

Published June 9, 2020

In the past few weeks, several venture capital firms have published different variations of the same pledge: we’ll do a better job supporting the Black community.

My timeline, and I’m assuming yours too, has been filled with statements from non-Black venture capitalists saying that they will rethink how to be more inclusive with their hiring and wiring.

There is no need to applaud firms for taking long overdue steps to treat others equally. What is more important is how we’re going to hold these firms accountable going forward, after a history of inaction.

In a memo published on Friday, Matchstick Ventures outlined a series of commitments to fight racism and underrepresentation. The firm, which manages nearly $37 million dollars and is led by Ryan Broshar and Natty Zola, turned to Black entrepreneur Clarence Bethea for advice on how to proceed.

The pledge stood out for two firm reasons: It is more robust than most promises we have seen by high-profile firms, and it has actual numbers and a deadline, which are key to benchmarking progress.

Disclose your current diversity statistics

Matchstick says 7% of the companies it has invested in have Black founders or founding team members, which is seven times the industry average. Portfolio diversity data needs to be more largely released by the VC community because it’s the only way to determine if progress is being made. So far, beyond Matchstick, we’ve only seen Initialized Capital release diversity metrics. Union Square Ventures said that of moe than 100 investments, only a few have been in self-identified Black founders.

Playing traffic cop for drones in cities and towns nets Airspace Link $4 million

Published January 23, 2020

As the number of drones proliferates in cities and towns across America, government agencies are scrambling to find ways to manage the oncoming traffic that’s expected to clog up their airspace.

Companies like Airmap and KittyHawk have raised tens of millions to develop technologies that can help cities manage congestion in the friendly skies, and now they have a new competitor in the Detroit-based startup, Airspace Link, which just raised $4 million from a swarm of investors to bring its services to the broader market.

The financing for Airspace Link follows the company’s reception of a stamp of approval from the Federal Aviation Administration for low-altitude authorization and notification capabilities, according to chief executive Michael Healander.

According to Healander, what distinguishes Airspace Link from the other competitors in the market is its integration with mapping tools used by municipal governments to provide information on ground-based risk.

“We’re creating the roads based on ground-based risk and we push that out into the drone community to let them know where it’s okay to fly,” says Healander.

That knowledge of terrestrial critical assets in cities and towns comes from deep integrations between Airspace Link and the mapping company ESRI, which has long provided federal, state and local governments with mapping capabilities and services.

“We’ve just spent the past month understanding what regulation is going to be around to support it. In two years from now every drone will be live tracked in our platform,” says Healnder. “Today we’re just authorizing flight plans.”

As drone operators increase in number, the autonomous vehicles pose more potential risks to civilian populations in the wrong hands.

Parking lots, sporting events, concerts — really any public area — could be targets for potential attacks using drones.

“Drones are becoming more and more powerful and smarter,” EU Security Commissioner Julian King warned in a statement last summer, “which makes them more and more attractive for legitimate use, but also for hostile acts.”

Already roughly half of the population of the U.S. lives in controlled airspace where drones flying with more than a half a pound of weight require flight plan authorization, according to Healander.

“We build out population data and give state and local governments a tool to create advisories for emergency events or any areas where high densities of people will be,” says Healander. “That creates an advisory that goes through our platform to the drone industry.”

Airspace Link closed a $1 million pre-seed round in September 2019 with a $6 million post-money valuation. The current valuation of the company is undisclosed, but the company’s progress was enough to draw the attention of investors led by Indicator Ventures with participation from 2048 Ventures, Ludlow Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, Detroit Venture Partners and Invest Detroit.

For Healander, Airspace Link is only the latest entrepreneurial venture. He previously founded GeoMetri, an indoor GPS tracking company, which was acquired by Acuity Brands.

I’ve been a partner of ESRI my entire life,” says Healander. “I’ve been in the geospatial industry for four or five companies with them.”

The company has four main components of its service. There’s AirRegistry, where people can opt-in or out of receiving drone deliveries; AirInspect, which is a service that handles city and state permitting for drone operators; AirNetm, which works with the FAA to create approved air routes for drones; and AirLink, an API that connects drone operators with local governments and collects fees for registering drones.

Onward raises $1.5 million to offer round-trip rides to older adults needing assistance

Published July 22, 2019

Uber and Lyft aren’t designed to transport people who need a little help getting out of the house or need someone to help get them from the doctor’s waiting room back to their home. While Uber, for example, has launched Uber Health to help patients get to their appointments, the drivers are not vetted with patient assistance in mind. This is where Onward comes in.

Onward, with $1.5 million in seed funding from Royal Street Ventures, Matchstick Ventures and JPK Capital, launched a few months ago in the San Francisco Bay Area to help seniors safely get from point A to point B. Unlike Uber and Lyft, Onward offers round-trip, door-to-door rides and aims to provide freedom for older adults who may feel isolated, Onward co-founder Mike Lewis told TechCrunch.

The idea for Onward emerged from Lewis’ experience with his mother-in-law who had Alzheimer’s. It got him and his co-founder, Nader Akhnoukh, thinking about the idea of aging in place and how older people may feel isolated as they become unable to do the tasks they’ve spent their whole lives doing, like driving.

“The minute you can’t do that, it’s sad and scary,” Lewis said.

Onward has three types of customers: older adults who are no longer able to drive, someone who can’t drive for medical reasons (surgeries, eye exams, etc.) and caregivers who are unable to provide transportation to their loved ones.

Similar to Uber and Lyft, Onward drivers are 1099 contractors, but a key difference is that they are paid hourly — at least $20 per hour. Currently, there are more than 25 drivers on board who are all trained in CPR, dementia, and have gone through a background check and car inspection.

Onward also ensures its drivers know how to fold wheelchairs, though, only some drivers have the ability to transport those in powered wheelchairs. This time next year, Onward expects to have hundreds of drivers. Lewis says he also expects the number of vehicles with the ability to transport people in powered wheelchairs to increase as the company grows.

For riders, they can expect to pay $35 per hour. The minimum charge for the trip is one hour, so this is definitely geared toward people who may need the driver to wait for them during a doctor’s appointment, for example. After the first hour, Onward charges by the minute.

That hourly fee gets riders round-trip rides with the driver waiting for you at the destination, door-to-door assistance at each stop and the ability to request favorite drivers.

Onward completed its first ride in March in the San Francisco Bay Area. For the rest of the year, Onward plans to focus on San Francisco as well as one other launch market. To date, Onward has completed more than 500 trips.