Some CEOs are good at operations.
Some CEOs are good at acquisitions.
Some CEOs are good at corporate messaging.
Very few are good at all three.
Plurilock Security (PLUR.V) CEO Ian Paterson is an example of a CEO who has these three skills.
On June 29, 2021 PLUR provided a corporate update for the first half of 2021.
Key Highlights:
- Plurilock’s Solutions Division has signed a cumulative US$3.16M in new business since April 2021
- Robust activity in the cybersecurity sector has resulted in an active M&A pipeline with multiple offers in play
- Filing of three U.S. provisional patent applications increases Plurilock’s total patent portfolio to six
Plurilock is an identity-centric cybersecurity company that reduces or eliminates the need for passwords by measuring the pace, rhythm and cadence of a user’s keystrokes to confirm their identity.”
Your typing-style is a matrix of unique identifiers.
If I need to write a capital “Z”, I hit SHIFT with my baby left-finger, then swoop my right hand across the keyboard to hit the “Z”. There is no-one else on the planet who does it exactly that way, at exactly my speed. Combine that with 100 other typing quirks, it creates a dynamic fingerprint.
Plurilock’s Artificial Intelligence (A.I) can learn a “unique typing signature” in under 60 seconds.
The company’s technology has the power to disrupt the current status quo: Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) – which is widely disliked and unreliable.
“Dedicated hackers have little problem bypassing through the weaker MFA implementations, either by intercepting codes or exploiting account-recovery systems,” reports The Verge.
2021/2022 Plurilock Growth & Industry Outlook
Aurora Systems Consulting acquisition is completed and integrated within the Plurilock family.
Plurilock’s upside on this deal:
- Obtain a professional services team
- New office on the West Coast of the U.S.
- Larger market presence in the U.S. cybersecurity industry
- Offshore office in India built for quoting government deals.
Aurora gained access to PLUR’s cutting-edge AI platform, resulting in a high-level of cross pollination between Plurilock’s and Aurora’s technology offerings.
Since the April 2021 acquisition, PLUR has announced over US$3.16M in contract wins.
Plurilock continues to identify and evaluate potential accreditive acquisition targets with a large customer base in order to capture synergistic opportunities.
Plurilock plans to leverage distribution channels and cross-sell the Company’s high-margin products to Aurora’s existing client base, which would result in an increased revenue run rate.
It is expected that the Company will continue to execute on its M&A pipeline in order to add additional revenue to the business.
Sales Acceleration
At the end of March 2021, Plurilock completed the acquisition of Aurora, a leading IT and security solutions provider. A summary of Aurora that was previously included in a Plurilock press release dated April 1, 2021 including:
- Revenue of US$28.1 million (CAD$35.8 million) in 2020
- Gross Margin of US$1.4M in 2020
- Diversified client base consisting of over 140 tier-1 organizations
- Numerous prominent master service agreements with state and federal agencies in the United States
Concurrently, Plurilock divided its operations into two divisions, namely the Technology Division (Plurilock’s existing portfolio of software products) and Solutions Division (Aurora’s products and services).
The Aurora acquisition enables the Company to leverage the Solutions Division’s extensive distribution channels which sell high volume & low margin products to cross-sell the Technology Division’s high-margin products.
Since the acquisition announcement, Plurilock has successfully increased sales velocity, notably including:
- US$1.15 million order with the U.S. Department of the Navy
- US$120,000 order with the U.S. Special Operations Command under the SEWP V program
- US$400,000 order from a California state health care agency under the NASPO ValuePoint program
Total cumulative contracts awarded since the acquisition represent US$3.16M in sales.
The June 29, 2021 press release updates shareholders on the M&A pipeline, Final Base Shelf Prospectus and Recent Financing, Certification and Compliance Program, Tax Credits, Board of Directors, Core Product Initiatives and Patent Portfolio update.
“The first half of 2021 has been an active one for our team,” stated Ian L. Paterson, CEO of Plurilock. “The achievements have positioned us well to empower our customers with solutions to solve critical issues and defend against threats.”
In this May 20, 2021 You Tube video, Plurilock CEO Ian Paterson speaks with Chris Parry about the business objectives of PLUR.
“The way that you type on a keyboard and the way that you move a mouse can uniquely identify you as a person,” explains Paterson, “The field of study is called behavioral biometrics. As a result of our patented technology, we’ve bundled this into effectively an authentication security product.”
“Most traditional authentication happens once, maybe twice per day,” added Paterson, “When you first get started in the morning, you sit down, you type in a login and password. There’s not any additional checks throughout the day.”
“At Plurilock, we’re checking 250 to 300 times per day, invisibly in the background without the employee having to do anything extra during the workday.”
A lack of cybersecurity experts is one of the demand-drivers for PLUR’s technology.
“For 2021, there’s over three and a half million cybersecurity jobs unfilled,” Paterson told Parry, “We have a negative unemployment in the industry. The problem is getting worse, not better.”
Paterson states that the solution to a skilled worker shortage is smarter tools.
“Entry level cybersecurity staff typically start in a security operations center. They look at alerts on a on a daily basis. You have to be skilled and knowledgeable to know which alert to look at versus the thousands that you should just ignore”.
“Because we’re using automation and AI, we’re enabling those Junior people to be more efficient.”
Paterson points out that no security system is 100% secure.
“If you look at traditional locks or safes, the highest-grade products are measured by how long it takes a determined attacker to break in,” explains Paterson, “With software, it’s similar.”
“With enough time, money and expertise, you can get into anything. But the trick is how, how easy or difficult are you going to make it? The good guys have to recognize there’s been an intrusion to stop the bad guys moving laterally throughout the network”.
“Plurilock is still very early in its journey,” explains Paterson, “Most cybersecurity companies operate privately going down the VC road for many, many years and only go public once they’re at the multi billion-dollar stage.”
“Ransomware attacks have increased globally by 102% this year, compared to the first half of 2020, with healthcare and utilities being the most targeted sectors,” stated PLUR.
Major incidents such as the Colonial Pipeline and Oldsmar’s water treatment attack have brought more awareness to this global crisis. In line with the increased focus on cybersecurity, on May 12, 2021, President Biden signed an executive order to urge U.S. federal government agencies to strengthen their defenses.
According to a report from Cybersecurity Ventures, global cybersecurity spending is estimated to exceed US$1 trillion cumulatively from 2017 to 2021.
These statistics underscore the need and opportunity in the market for solutions like Plurilock’s proprietary products.
Parry asked Paterson if there was “a consumer product out there on the horizon somewhere”.
“We started mid-market – a couple of hundred employees – up to tens of thousands of employees,” explained Paterson, “There’s plenty of opportunity in the future to scale up, or to scale down into adjacent verticals. That’s the beauty of cybersecurity. It’s such a large market, there’s all kinds of opportunity to go after.”
- Lukas Kane
Full Disclosure: Plurilock is an Equity Guru marketing client.
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