High Leverage Capital Holdings, Micro Step Online Exploration "Safety" Market Segmentation

With the wide application of technology such as Internet of things and cloud computing, the value of enterprise digital assets has been increasing, and the demand for network security services is becoming more and more urgent. As one of the subdivision areas of network security, the threat intelligence market is gradually emerging.

In the US market, there have been a number of threat intelligence companies, such as Crowd Strike, which was launched in June this year, with a market value of more than 20 billion dollars. In China, the threat intelligence market also presents the scene of competition between big and small manufacturers. Not only are start-ups stepping online, but also large security vendors such as 360, Qi Anxin and Green League have entered this field.

It is understood that although the micro step online has only been established for four years, it has been recognized by many head enterprise customers in the market. In the middle of 11 this year, the micro step online announced that it has completed the C round of 100 billion yuan financing, which was jointly led by star road capital and high alley capital. Prior to this, the micro step online also obtained B investment such as high alley capital.

As a start-up company in the field of threat intelligence, why can micro step online continue to gain the favor of high leverage capital? How can it build competitive barriers in the market of giants?

Financial industry starts mining seed users

The micro step online was established in July 2015 to help enterprises enhance their capability of threat detection and response. Xue Feng, founder of the company, served as chief information security officer of Amason (China) and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp's Internet security strategy. Other members of the team came from BAT, the US group and other companies.

At present, the micro step online has developed a network threat perception platform, a local threat intelligence management platform, and a safety DNS service OneDNS accelerator three main products, and has a high market share in many industries. Xue Feng said that the micro step has accumulated a lot of head customers in the financial, Internet, energy and other fields, including China Merchants Bank, Minsheng Bank, Tencent, Huatai Securities, State Grid and so on.

Li Qiushi, an online co-founder of micro step, told the economic report in twenty-first Century that the first batch of seed users on the first step were mainly from the financial industry. Such a choice was not intentional. Now it is mainly because the financial industry has several attributes that are particularly suitable for micro stepping.

First of all, the financial industry has a lot of assets, and the organization has a lot of money and user information. Second, financial institutions attach importance to safety and are willing to invest. "Third, the financial industry attaches great importance to the practicability of technology and whether it can really help solve problems. The organization will take the maximum measure of actual results, not because you are a startup company. Li Qiushi said.

"Compared with the threat intelligence products of large security vendors, although the micro step is only a start-up company, it still has unique technological advantages." Micro step online co-founder Ren Zheng said. First of all, although many large vendors accumulate more data, they are more careful in understanding and disassembling data. Second, although the volume of large firms is large, the energy input in the field of threat intelligence may not be more than micro steps. It is also possible that Gartner was named the most professional Threat Intelligence company in the Asia Pacific region in 2017 and 2019.

Rapid expansion of capital strength

Product technology as the core of the micro step online, in the primary market is also all the way to get Aurora Borealis, cloud angel fund, high allocations capital recognition. In twenty-first Century, the economic report noted that PE based investment in high leverage capital is the main investor in the micro step B and C financing.

Huang Liming, a highly named capital partner, said that the threat intelligence capability is one of the key drivers of the security structure of an energy enterprise. As the earliest team in the field of threat intelligence, we focus on the research and development of safety products on the micro step, and accumulate and enhance the automation and intelligence analysis capabilities of security data through continuous systematization, so as to provide effective protection for the enterprise network security operation and security architecture in the cloud era.

Xue Feng disclosed that investing in high allocating capital is not an easy task. Generally speaking, when the investment organization conducts due diligence, it may only interview 1-4 business customers. But in the B round of financing, Gao Ling capital interviewed 15 industry customers at one time to find out the reasons why they chose to use, temporarily do not use and abandon the use of products. After thorough investigation, Gao Ling only invested in micro steps. During the C round of financing, Gao Ling also made a survey of micro steps, and finally decided to continue investing.

At present, the micro step has not been profitable for the time being, and is still in a state of continuous investment. "We may have less investment in R & D and marketing, but we can still make profits because the company is still expanding, so profit is not our first goal. I believe that in the coming years, with the increase of users and the dilution of costs, the company will surely make profits. " Xue Feng told the twenty-first Century economic report.