How did twin brothers Paul and Peter Martini, sons of Cuban immigrants, rise from humble beginnings in a garage to become builders of iboss, a leading cloud security provider with a global footprint?
According to iboss CEO Paul Martini the answer is hard work and perseverance. But hard work alone won’t build a global technology company. His ingenuity, born of countless hours of trial and error in a research lab, allowed him to invent a new way to secure networks and data. This founder’s journey is based on my interview with Paul Martini.
“I was originally doing research in computer science and biochemistry. I think that R&D background really paid off,” say Martini. His idea for the technology behind the founding of iboss came about when we was working for Copper Mountain Networks after graduating from the University of California, San Diego doing circuit board design and network software development to secure data while improving network speed and came up with the idea of horizontal scaling. Rather than trying to push data faster through a network, the horizontal scaling approach entails adding more machines to further distribute the load of the database and increase overall storage, processing power or network speed.
“I was looking at the Blackberry at the time and thinking about what happens when you don’t have control over the network or Wi Fi routers, and that kind of kicked off this whole journey for me to solve the problem of delivering security capabilities at scale in a situation where you have no control over the network of users,” says Martini.
In 2003, he and his brother would leave their high-paying jobs in technology and start the business from their garage in San Diego. “We knew that to build that initial prototype of what we want to do was going to take two years. So, that was two years with no pay and we were also funding the company. So that was two years to pay for the circuit boards and all of the R&D materials on our own,” says Martini.
They would go on to build the business through hard work, even sleeping in data centers in the early days to assure customers of their commitment to solving their network security challenges. Today, iboss is built on a containerized cloud architecture that has positioned the company as a leader in the fast-growing global zero trust cloud security market that reached $21.43 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow to $54.37 billion by 2030, according to Fortune Business Insights. “We have patents for this containerization model, which basically completely isolates the data path,” says Martini.
According to Martini, the company, now headquartered in Boston has some 400 employees who service more than 4,000 global enterprises through its more than 100 data centers across the globe processing 150 billion transactions daily and blocking 4 billion security threats a day. It continues to grow through innovation with the company issued over 250 patents related to network security connectivity.
As a result, the company has attracted a total of $180 million in funding over two rounds. It’s most recent $145 million Series B round in January of 2021 was led by Francisco Partners and NightDragon. It’s previous A round for $35 million was led by GS Growth.
Its “slow and steady wins the race” approach to building the business applies to its approach to VC funding. Martini likens iboss to Netflix in how it disrupted the network security market. “We’re making it so you don’t have to buy network security appliances. And you’re going to get the security on demand you need, basically security streams, from wherever you can work, faster than ever before,” says Martini who is in the business for the long term having turned down lucrative offers to sell the business over the course of the company’s history, despite entreaties from VCs and even some board members.
“We believe that there’s the equivalent of a Netflix coming for security connectivity. And we believe that we have the right answer. And we are so committed to that vision no matter the offer. “We’ve had offers over $750 million. The numbers keep getting bigger,” says Martini.
Martini attributes his penchant for hard work to his upbringing. “My entreprenuer type of DNA, I would say, comes from my parents. My parents immigrated from Cuba. They were in exile and came here with nothing, so they had to build everything from scratch,” says Martini. His parents were in various food businesses. His dad had a shop while his mom ran a restaurant business, where the young Martini was put to work when he was seven or eight years old.
“A lot of people look at what they see on the surface of a company and don’t realise that it’s a lot of hard work. You have to roll up your sleeves. You have to really put the work in. And then on top of it, you have to do that when there’s a lot of adversity,” says Martini
As for the future? While an IPO is in the future when markets are right, according to Martini, after 20 years he is still focused on the future. “I feel that when you own that connection, when you’re able to deliver it and connect people to what they need in a secure way, it’s limitless in terms of where you can go with that,” concludes Martini.
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