Invary, a pioneering cybersecurity company dedicated to identifying concealed malware and mitigating costly ransomware threats, has successfully raised pre-seed funding to launch its industry-first solution. The $1.85 million investment, led by Flyover Capital and supported by NetWork Kansas GROWKS Equity program and the KU Innovation Park, will fuel the launch of Invary's flagship Runtime Integrity Service. This offering is set to debut this summer and empowers organizations to fortify their security defenses, proactively safeguard their digital environment and neutralize elusive threats in the operating system that evade conventional detection systems.

"We are thrilled to have secured this pre-seed funding, as it validates the need for Invary's novel technology to shore up existing cyber defenses against high-impact hidden threats," said Jason Rogers, CEO of Invary. "With the support of our investors, customers and partners, we are well-positioned to advance our mission of fortifying the security ecosystem by reinforcing Zero Trust principles."

Invary was founded by Dr. Perry Alexander and jumpstarted by a proprietary grant from the National Security Agency (NSA), an IP closely shaped by Dr. Alexander's own research. Dr. Wesley Peck, a protegé of Dr. Alexander’s who crafted his dissertation under his guidance, will serve as Invary’s CTO. Dr. Peck has spent 15 years in the industry, and for much of that time has  worked alongside Invary CEO Jason Rogers on internet-scale cloud solutions demanding cutting-edge security practices. Now, Dr. Peck finds himself back under the tutelage of his old mentor, Dr. Alexander. This unique confluence of academia, industry and government was facilitated by the KU Innovation Park in Lawrence, KS, a non-profit organization dedicated to nurturing growth in the technology and bioscience sectors.

"Ensuring the safety of our customers and cyber community is our #1 priority. 

Our pre-seed funding enables us to realize this dedication by continuously improving Invary’s Runtime Integrity Service while also making our agent open source. We’re proud to enhance operating system security for all by accelerating the industry’s progress toward truly comprehensive Zero Trust Architectures," said Dr. Wesley Peck, CTO of Invary. 

Today's rapidly evolving threat landscape presents a significant challenge for organizations, even those equipped with advanced defenses like XDR, SIEM and CNAPP solutions. These defenses rely on the problematic assumption that the operating system is uncompromised, creating a critical vulnerability threat actors can exploit to orchestrate ransomware attacks or data breaches. In fact, according to Datadog's latest State of Application Security report, a staggering 72% of cyberattacks occur in the production environment.

Invary fills this security gap by mandating continuous validation of the operating system at runtime, making it an indispensable component of a "trust nothing" Zero Trust architecture. Any SaaS, financial, health, higher ed or enterprise organization operating Linux operating systems in Cloud Native (including AWS, GCP and Azure) or physical environments are at risk for ransomware, data breaches and cyberespionage and can therefore benefit from Invary’s Runtime Integrity Service. 

Jon Broek, CEO of Tenfold Security, a leader in cloud security services, said, "Invary Runtime Integrity gives us an unfair advantage over the competition when deployed with our security solutions for cloud and virtual machines. It also provides a key component of keeping our customers secured end to end and preventing things like ransomware that are highly targeting our core customers in higher education."  

The IT team at LMH Health said, "One of the key challenges in combating destructive ransomware is the hidden malware within operating systems that often serves as the foundation for such attacks. Invary Runtime Integrity gives visibility into a part of the system overlooked by most other security tools. We are able to gain confidence that the operating system has not been compromised, but if there are cases where anomalies are detected, a wealth of information is provided to help determine if they are benign, intentional or potentially malicious."  

The successful conclusion of the pre-seed funding round serves as a testament to Invary's unwavering commitment to pushing the limits of Runtime Security. Bolstered by this substantial investment, Invary is well-positioned to expedite its growth, enrich its technology and extend its influence in the realm of preventing data breaches and ransomware attacks.