The software program provide chain faces threats from all sides. A 2024 report by the Ponemon Institute discovered that over half of organizations have skilled a software program provide chain assault, with 54% having skilled one inside the previous yr.
Provide chain assaults usually goal companies from third-party distributors or open supply software program that make up an organization’s tech stack, they usually can financially devastate a company. In accordance to a Juniper Analysis research, provide chain cyberattacks might price the worldwide financial system nearly $81 billion in misplaced income and damages by 2026. The White Home has indicated a dedication to addressing the broader difficulty of software program provide chain safety, overtly declaring it a nationwide safety downside and releasing an govt order aimed toward establishing mitigatory requirements.
The risk has fueled the demand for platforms that can be utilized to detect — and, in an ideal world, mitigate — assaults on a enterprise’ software program provide chain. One startup creating such a platform, Lineaje (a semi-phonetic spelling of “lineage”), immediately closed a $20 million Collection A funding spherical.
Based in 2021 by Javed Hasan and Anand Revashetti, Lineaje develops instruments to detect software program in a company’s provide chain that’s been tampered with, in addition to outdated, doubtlessly weak open supply software program. As soon as Lineaje finds a probable vulnerability, it recommends fixes — if any can be found — and warns in opposition to implementing those who would possibly break the software program.
“For organizations that care concerning the threat their software program creates for his or her organizations in addition to their clients, focusing and managing this threat is crucial,” Hasan, Lineaje’s CEO, instructed TechCrunch. “Lineaje was born to find, handle and safe software program regardless of the place it’s constructed.”
Each Hasan and Revashetti hail from the cybersecurity business, having labored at distributors together with Symantec, McAfee and Norton. They crossed paths whereas at McAfee, the place Revashetti was a fellow and chief architect.
“Software program provide chain assaults and considerations have been steadily rising,” Hasan mentioned. “As we checked out this house, it was clear that that provide chain was a top-three concern for CISOs and the U.S. authorities.”
Lineaje occupies a crowded market. Kusari, Ox Safety, Chainguard, Dustico and Endor are amongst its rivals, and massive tech firms equivalent to Google, Amazon and Microsoft are mounting efforts to enhance basic open supply software program safety.
However a method Lineaje is making an attempt to face out is by embracing protection work. Hasan claims that the corporate has a contract with the U.S. Air Drive to help its “Eagle Eyes” anti-terrorism program in addition to relationships with different unnamed federal companies.
Public sector companies actually cope with software program provide chain challenges just like what the non-public sector sees. A latest report launched by the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety discovered that one U.S. authorities cupboard company spent months responding to a vulnerability within the library of Apache’s Log4j2, a Java-based logging utility, partially as a result of its safety groups had bother figuring out the place the weak packages resided inside their software program environments.
The proceeds from Lineaje’s Collection A, which deliver the startup’s complete raised to $27 million, will bolster its efforts to amass much more U.S. public sector clientele, Hasan continued.
“The Collection A funding spherical will cowl us till early 2027 a minimum of,” he mentioned, including that final yr was Lineaje’s first yr of income. “We now have about 30 staff presently, with plans to double headcount by the tip of the yr.”
The spherical was co-led by Prosperity7 Ventures, Neotribe and Hitachi with participation from Tenable Ventures, Carahsoft, Wipro Ventures, SecureOctane and AlumniVentures.