ZYSTON OPENED FOR BUSINESS IN MAY AND ALREADY HAS MAJOR CLIENTS

A new Dallas firm wants to be on the front lines of cybersecurity for mid-market companies. Zyston, which draws its name from an ancient Greek weapon, has a dozen employees, seven in Dallas and five in Atlanta, and $3.7 million in Series A funding.

The company provides the full range of cybersecurity options from ensuring networks are secure to monitoring them on an ongoing basis.

“The demand has been really good. We already have four clients and we’ve only been around for 34 days,” President and CEO Craig Stamm said. “The sophistication of the hackers is growing each and every day. We come in and provide a rational way for them to get their arms around their network.”

“We already have four clients and we’ve only been around for 34 days.” Craig Stamm

The largest customer so far is Tokyo-based Fujitsu, which has several locations in North Texas and is the 206th largest company in the world, according to Forbes. The company plans to double its employees by the end of the year.

The executive team alone has a combined four decades of experience. In addition to Stamm, it includes Jonathan Steenland, a former chief information security officer at Fujitsu, and Richard Dorough, a former managing director of PwC’s Cyber Breach Response Practice and former CISO at Textron.

Stamm, who was an investment banker at Citi Group, said he’s targeting companies with $100 million to $2 billion in revenues. That includes the credit card processing and the banking and financial sectors as big targets.

“We think this area will need our services greatly,” said Stamm, who worked in the brand protection and anti-counterfeiting sector prior to starting Zyston.

Craig Stamm of Zyston

Modern companies have so many vulnerable points, such as laptops, wireless networks and smart phones. Zyston helps companies put the right policies and processes in place to protect their data and devices.

ZYSTON SECURED $3.7 MILLION IN SERIES A FUNDING

Stamm’s quest to start Zyston began 18 months ago when he started a search fund out of Stanford Business School. It raised $630,000, enough to kick start the company.

Then, at the start of 2015, Stamm secured $3.7 million from 10 business and security executives. Funding closed on May 20 and the company started business on May 23. 

The company’s name harkens back to Alexander the Great’s weapon of choice, called a xython in Greek. Stamm, a military history buff, said the name represents what his company is all about. Made of lightweight materials, the xython revolutionized combat because it could be longer, giving the user greater range.

That’s the idea behind Zyston, having a weapon that’s greater than the enemies to protect your company’s network and data, Stamm said.  

That also fits with the company’s motto: “Know thyself, know thy enemy, adapt and overcome.”

For a daily dose of what’s new and next in Dallas-Fort Worth innovation, subscribe to our Dallas Innovates e-newsletter.