Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Hari thanks so much for joining us.
Hari Ravichandran, Aura
Thank you, Keith. Thanks for having me on the program,
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
I'm excited to talk to you because we're going to talk about the world of security, which is more of a consumer-oriented type of discussion. And I just know personally, and I'm sure lots of consumers think the same thing. You see these data breaches from organizations every day. And you get notified now by your credit card, like, Oh, hey, your information may be out there. And you're like, what does that mean? Right? We're like, it's petrifying now, as you trust, you know, to put your information out there for e-commerce and doing things. But now with these data breaches, you're like, you know, identity theft and your personal information. Where is it? So I'm excited to talk to you because you're building a company that's helping consumers with this problem. So talk about Aura and what you do.
Hari Ravichandran, Aura
That's exactly right. And that's a great leader, Keith. So at Aura, what we're trying to do is to create a safer internet, I mean, it's sort of the mission that we're on at this point. So to us, what that means is really kind of demystifying this entire ecosystem of problems that consumers face. A lot of the current products in the marketplace tend to be very reactive, they kind of look at one particular part of the problem set and not the entirety of it. So our product is really a one-stop solution that covers the wide gamut of potential security issues that consumers space. We also do everything in a much more proactive way versus reactive versus someone that might descend alert that something's gone wrong here, we'll try to figure out how to make sure that you just don't get breached. And you know, how to keep consumers and families safe.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So let's talk about your background. So because I think that connects a lot of dots of what led you down the path to start this company. So you know, talking about I guess, the other things that you've done your serial entrepreneur, and then what led you down the path to start Aura?
Hari Ravichandran, Aura
Yes, so this is my second go-round, I was at a startup, the first one I was a company called endurance international started that when I was 20. It was basically a garage startup. And I invested my own capital into it. And eventually grew that to business with about a billion of revenue. So as a public company, we had about 4000 employees and you know, as running a public company after a while, you know, I really missed the entrepreneurial journey, I miss sort of building things from scratch, and this sort of the growth element of, of kind of really being able to mold a solution being close to the customer, which really is what was one of the driving factors for Aura. But the real incident that sort of gave me a spark that this is a problem that should get solved is in the 2014 timeframe. My identity got stolen, my information kind of got out there. And the general sense of, you know, the point I was saying, Okay, well, you know, I'm sure there's a solution out there, just go buy it, and I'm sure this is gonna get remedied. The thing I realized is there really wasn't I mean, there were like, pieces of a solution. The whole experience was frustrating, it was overwhelming. I was worried about where this particular breach had happened, and how exactly people have gotten a hold of my information. So that's when sort of the spark started, which is, hey, it seems like this should be a problem that somebody ought to solve. And so as I was exiting out of Endurance and thinking about starting something new, this was sort of the moment where I was like, Okay, if we can use technology and scale to solve this issue, it really helps a lot of consumers and families, and nobody's really going to go after this problem. And that really was the origination story for Aura.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
How does it work for consumers? Because as you noted, there are a lot of siloed solutions out there that cover different pieces. So how does it work with aura as far as the different components,
Hari Ravichandran, Aura
So one of the things we did that was a little bit different from other people were, was to effectively buy many of the elements that were needed to put together an integrated solution. So we went out to market, we've now deployed almost $300 million to buy pieces of what was needed in the suite, we spent two years really kind of integrating all these pieces together. So it includes Endpoint Protection, like any virus, ransomware, management, etc. It's got transaction monitoring, dark web scanning, identity protection, credit monitoring. So wide gamut is stuff that consumers need when their data gets stolen, or their identity gets stolen. And so that we've kind of taken all of that and made it very integrated, easy to use, which is another big factor because people don't want to spend a lot of time and they tend to get overwhelmed at the whole solution set. It's very confusing. So a lot of our work is around trying to make that journey very easy, affordable, and very integrated and all in one for consumers.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
And where's the company today? I know that recently you announced a new round of capital $150 million. So let's talk about you know, that you know, the company where it stands today as far as scale number of employees, whatever you can share.
Hari Ravichandran, Aura
Yeah, we're about 800 people I mean, it really is the starting point of the rocket and the curve basically, right, so we feel like there's just a lot of growth coming up. We've spent several years now building this great product. We've got a great board, a great set of investors. So it's very well organized now to really start and it started to take off here, companies, about 230 million in revenues, were growing, we have a great deal of investment behind r&d, product, distribution, all of the elements that make up make a great business, in our opinion. And we've got 140 open racks. So it's growing every day.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So yeah, so as you noted, it's pretty much hiring across the board, all the different functional areas.
Hari Ravichandran, Aura
That is exactly right. And it's a team that really has kind of come together, we've got some great rock stars on the management team, great rock stars on the board, people that have been through journeys like this before and knew how to hyper scale a company, and just a lot of super talented, thoughtful, wonderful people. And really, our culture is very, you know, very humble. We're not heavily ego-driven, but we are very ambitious. And we want to build something big because we think that the TAM here is limitless. It's a huge Tam. Everybody needs this kind of a solution. And there's just a big gaping hole in the market. So we feel like just a lot of excitement around a lot of things to come with the product side and the distribution side.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Yeah, it sounds like it's an ideal opportunity. Because you're dealing with a company that has brought all these components together, there's already a substantial amount of revenue, there's fresh capital. So it's like, you're coming in at this inflection point where it's like, go time, it's, you know, we've got the solution. But now it's, you know, let's ride this rocket ship to the next level.
Hari Ravichandran, Aura
Yeah, look the way I see it, all of the key ingredients are all in the business today. And it's a big problem, right. And we I feel like if we can solve this and solve this the right way, it's $100 billion company, it's something that, you know, we can take a solution that really makes things meaningfully different for consumers and families and actually helps a lot of folks, but also be able to build a big business by providing this as a service to many, many people.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So there's a lot of opportunities out there, there's the job market is very active, which is a good thing. But so why is now the ideal time to join Aura.
Hari Ravichandran, Aura
Look at my thinking the life stage of a company, there are only very few inflection points where you come in where that sort of intersection of how risky is the opportunity compared to the reward that you get, it happens only a few times, right? To get there, you need a great market, you need a great product, you need a great team, you need a great set of investors. And in our particular situation, we've kind of put all that together now. So the next five years are sort of reaping the reward side of it. So if you're thinking about it from a career journey perspective, we're still small enough where we love athletes, people that do not sort of hunkered down to one particular job or role, you know, people that are able to kind of span across multiple different things, a lot of career and growth opportunities there. And from the sort of a financial and economic opportunity, as the company does, well, everybody does well with it. And so so this, this, I think is a perfect time to be able to join Aura.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Well if you are interested in joining a company like Aura that has a solid foundation, but so much growth opportunity. And I just know, as a consumer, I want a product like this in the market because I want protection. There's so much going on out there every day you see it in the news. So it's like, thankful that there's a product that's in the market that's helping consumers with this issue. So if you want to check out their job listings, go to their company page on VentureFizz, which is venturefizz.com/aura, and that's aura. Hari thanks so much for taking the time to walk us through all the great things happening at the company.
Hari Ravichandran, Aura
Amazing. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me on the program..
Transcribed by https://otter.a
