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Associated Press
08-04-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Finalists Announced for 20th Annual RSAC™ Innovation Sandbox Contest 2025
SAN FRANCISCO, April 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- RSA Conference LLC (" RSAC"), the company behind the world's largest and most influential cybersecurity conference, today announced the Top 10 Finalists for its 20th annual RSAC™ Innovation Sandbox contest under the RSAC™ Innovation umbrella. The competition calls on the most promising young companies in cybersecurity to demonstrate their cutting-edge technologies to a panel of judges and live audience at RSAC™ 2025 Conference in San Francisco on Monday, April 28. Past finalists have included Imperva, SentinelOne, Axonius, Wiz, HiddenLayer, and 2024's winner, Reality Defender. The Top 10 Finalists will present a three-minute pitch and participate in a question-and-answer round as they battle on stage for the title of 'Most Innovative Startup.' The renowned panel of expert judges includes David Chen, Head of Global Technology Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley; Dorit Dor, Chief Technology Officer at Check Point Software Technologies; Niloofar Razi Howe, Operating Partner at Capitol Meridian Partners; Paul Kocher, Independent Researcher; Nasrin Rezai, SVP & CISO at Verizon; and Chris Young, former McAfee CEO, Microsoft Executive, and Investor. RSAC Executive Chairman and RSAC™ Conference Program Committee Chair Hugh Thompson will return to host the contest once again. To usher in the 20th anniversary, RSAC™ Conference recently announced a new investment program. For the first time, each of the Top 10 Finalists listed below has been awarded a $5M investment to aid their drive of cybersecurity innovation. More details about the new program can be found here. Submissions for the RSAC™ Innovation Sandbox contest in 2025 saw an increase of more than 40 percent from 2024. This year, over 200 cybersecurity startups applied from across the globe which is a testament to the impact that the Innovation Sandbox contest has on the industry. 'Selecting the Top 10 proved to be highly challenging this year based on the volume of high-quality submissions. My fellow judges and I are looking forward to seeing the finalists compete on the RSAC™ Conference stage,' said Nasrin Rezai, SVP & CISO at Verizon, and RSAC™ Innovation Sandbox contest judge. 'We are witnessing the next generation of highly innovative companies to solve for the cybersecurity problems of today and tomorrow.' The Finalists (in alphabetical order) are: Aurascape Aurascape believes AI has the potential to supercharge how society works. However, unchecked use of AI, Generative AI, and AI Agents does bring risks. Aurascape gives security and AI leaders the protection they need to confidently embrace AI. CalypsoAI CalypsoAI secures applications and agents through its Inference Platform — protecting AI at runtime with customizable defensive controls, agentic red-teaming, remediation, governance, and observability solutions — helping enterprises safely scale AI. Command Zero Command Zero is an autonomous and AI-assisted investigations platform, built to transform security operations. It empowers analysts to run advanced investigations and threat hunts in complex environments. The platform reduces mean time to understand and respond — delivering expert outcomes at scale. EQTY Lab AG EQTY Lab pioneers solutions that accelerate trust in AI. The AI Integrity Suite applies cryptography to ensure that the governance of AI agents is accountable and verifiable. With applications in the public sector, life sciences, and finance, EQTY Lab is at the forefront of enabling AI innovation. Knostic Knostic provides need-to-know based access controls for LLMs. With knowledge-centric capabilities, Knostic enables organizations to accelerate the adoption of LLMs and drive AI-powered innovation without compromising value, security, or safety. Metalware Metalware helps enterprises and governments secure critical infrastructure firmware at scale. Its binary fuzzing platform automates the traditionally complex process of firmware testing, enabling customers to detect and remediate vulnerabilities in embedded systems before deployment. MIND MIND is a data security platform that puts Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and Insider Risk Management (IRM) programs on autopilot to deliver both posture and prevention. MIND discovers and classifies sensitive data, fixes data security issues, and stops sensitive data leaks. ProjectDiscovery equips security teams with open-source tools to find and fix vulnerabilities fast. Powered by Nuclei, the platform automates attack surface monitoring and vulnerability management — helping organizations stay ahead of real-world threats. Smallstep Smallstep ensures only company-owned devices can access sensitive resources. Co-developers of ACME Device Attestation with Google and Apple, the Device Identity Platform solves the 'other half' of Zero Trust by securing Wi-Fi, VPNs, ZTNA, SaaS apps, and cloud APIs with hardware-bound credentials. Twine builds AI digital employees who execute tasks from A to Z to help cyber teams close the talent gap. The company's first AI digital employee, Alex, learns, understands and takes away the burden of identity management tasks — proactively completing the organization's cyber objectives. 'As we enter a new age of threats, innovation and new technologies are critical to achieving a safer society,' said Cecilia Marinier, Vice President, Innovation & Scholars, RSAC. 'The RSAC™ Innovation Sandbox contest is an unparalleled opportunity for both the industry and the founder to highlight industry-changing solutions, companies, and entrepreneurs. This year's Top 10 Finalists were perhaps the strongest we've seen yet in this contest, and I am beyond excited for our attendees to learn more about their innovative ideas and solutions on April 28.' The competition is widely recognized as a catapult for success as the Top 10 Finalists have collectively celebrated more than 90 acquisitions and received over $16.4 billion* in investments over the last 19 years. There have been several high-profile acquisitions of former ISB finalists in recent years. In November 2024, cybersecurity company Wiz (2021 ISB Finalist) announced the acquisition of Dazz (2023 ISB Finalist) for an estimated $450 million**. In November 2023, Palo Alto Networks announced the acquisition of Talon Cyber Security (2022 ISB winner) for an estimated $625 million**. Most recently, in March 2025, Google announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Wiz (2021 ISB Finalist) for $32 billion. Completion of this transaction would mark the largest acquisition of a private, venture-backed U.S. company to date. Other very successful independent companies graduating from the ISB program include: SentinelOne, Imperva, Axonius, and BigID as well as many others. The contest kicks off at the Moscone Center on Monday, April 28 at 9:30 AM PT and winners will be announced by approximately noon the same day. For more information regarding RSAC™ 2025 Conference, please visit * numbers according to Crunchbase as of December 31, 2024 ** numbers according to PitchBook as of April 8, 2025 About RSAC As the cybersecurity industry's convening authority, RSAC brings together diverse minds to exchange perspectives, knowledge, and ideas. RSAC provides the world's leading platform for uniting and advancing the cybersecurity community to create a safer society. RSAC is at the cutting edge of cybersecurity innovation and education. The company's flagship event, RSAC™ Conference, is the largest and most influential global gathering in cybersecurity. RSAC gives cybersecurity professionals a platform to connect and grow. To learn more, visit About RSAC™ Conference
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tencent AI Plans Seen as Key for Further China Tech Stock Gains
(Bloomberg) -- With Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. grabbing the spotlight of investor attention over China's success in artificial intelligence, Tencent Holdings Ltd. is still waiting for its turn to shine. The Dark Prophet of Car-Clogged Cities Washington, DC, Region Braces for 'Devastating' Cuts from Congress NYC Plans for Flood Protection Without Federal Funds A Malibu Model for Residents on the Fire Frontlines Despite Cost-Cutting Moves, Trump Plans to Remake DC in His Style Alibaba's Hong Kong-listed shares have risen more than twice as much as Tencent's 30% gain so far this year on the boom sparked by DeepSeek. The latter's earnings report due after Wednesday's close will provide important clues on its potential to catch up, including how much it intends to spend to grow its AI business. Tencent's stock is still a little more than 30% away from a new record high, but that's closer than many of its Chinese tech peers following Beijing's crackdowns on corporate giants in recent years. Prospects of a new peak for one of the sector's longtime leaders could help symbolize that the sector is truly back in business. AI success for Tencent 'could trigger renewed investor confidence in Chinese tech stocks,' said David Chen, chief investment officer of asset management at Tiger Brokers Hong Kong. It would 'validate the significant investments being made across the sector and could lead to a positive revaluation of AI-focused Chinese tech companies.' Beijing's latest vow to boost consumption has added further momentum to the tech-led rally in Chinese equities. It's also turning attention to how the internet firm co-founded by billionaire Pony Ma plans to commercialize AI to complement its chat app, game and internet advertising businesses. Specifically, Chen says the market is looking for the firm to announce 'substantial capital expenditure plans' for AI after Alibaba said it will invest more than 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) over the next three years. The game business will be the focus of Tencent's earnings, especially overseas growth and the performance of the new title Delta Force, he said. The company is expected to report 8.7% growth in sales for the December-ended quarter, the best in over a year. Analysts project a gross margin of 53.3%, holding near the highest level in eight years. Updates on AI developments are key for the stock's performance along with announcements on results and shareholder returns. Tencent on Tuesday released new AI services that turn text or images into 3D visuals and graphics, built atop its Hunyuan3D-2.0 large language model. Most major Chinese internet companies have integrated DeepSeek's economical AI model into their products and services. Tencent is among those who have gone the furthest, using DeepSeek to help power its search functions and WeChat/Weixin apps, according to Charlene Liu, an analyst at HSBC Holdings Plc. 'This open-minded approach should enhance Tencent's monetization potential as it builds on its strong application development capability, large user base and unique Weixin ecosystem,' she wrote in a note. 'AI is expected to solidify Weixin's user stickiness' and help it capture more client ad spending. Options traders are pricing in a 4.4% move in either direction for the shares after Wednesday's results, compared with an average gain or drop of 2.2% following its past eight quarterly reports. Rising valuations have raised some concerns for investors, even as Tencent's stock performance has lagged that of some peers. It's now trading at about 20 times forward earnings estimates, still above Alibaba's 15 times and pulling closer to Meta Platforms Inc.'s 22 times. 'Pure optimism may not be sufficient to have further multiple expansion, Tencent needs to deliver numbers,' said Xiadong Bao, a fund manager at Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management. 'Investors need Tencent to guide a close-to-double digit normalized growth, with margin expansion after an exceptional year in 2024.' Still, the stock 'may still have room to rerate' to its long-term earnings multiple of 23 times given the current round of stimulus and AI hype, according to Bao. 'Tencent's share price may reclaim its record high level if we are serious about China's turnaround story for this cycle.' Top Tech Stories Tesla Inc. has gone from Wall Street's hottest trade to most hated in a matter of months. Compounding the stock's woes this week, a rival out of China has one-upped the company on what's supposed to be Elon Musk's forte: EV innovation. Jensen Huang, Nvidia Corp.'s chief executive officer, used his annual developer conference to address concerns that the cost of artificial intelligence computing is spiraling out of control. The first data center complex for OpenAI's $100 billion Stargate infrastructure venture will have space for as many as 400,000 of Nvidia Corp.'s powerful AI chips — an amount that, if filled, would make it one of the largest known clusters of artificial intelligence computing power. Tesla's Gamble on MAGA Customers Won't Work The Real Reason Trump Is Pushing 'Buy American' The Future of Higher Ed Is in Austin How TD Became America's Most Convenient Bank for Money Launderers A US Drone Maker Tries to Take Back the Country's Skies ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Sign in to access your portfolio
