Startup Snapshot - Catching Up with our Portfolio Companies in September 2025
Cisco Investments backs startups pushing the boundaries of innovation in areas that matter to our customers. Each month, we spotlight how our portfolio companies are advancing the technologies shaping tomorrow’s enterprise.
Artificial Intelligence
DataRobot detailed the results of its AI Gateway benchmarks, showing how enterprises can distinguish true gateways from simple connectors. They emphasized that scaling agentic AI requires a centralized layer that delivers abstraction, control, and agility — decoupling tools and workflows, enforcing consistent governance and security policies, and enabling teams to adapt without disruption.
Groq launched the next generation of its agentic AI system, making Compound on GroqCloud generally available. They enhanced the platform with higher accuracy, lower latency, and greater stability, while also raising rate limits to support production-scale adoption.
Cloud & Data Center
HYCU achieved FIPS 140-3 certification, the highest U.S. government standard for cryptographic security. They emphasized that this milestone builds on their legacy as a trusted provider for federal and security-conscious organizations, adding to existing credentials such as DISA STIG compliance and Common Criteria certification.
Collaboration
Theta Lake will showcase its compliance and security platform at WebexOne from September 28 through October 1. Theta Lake unlocks the full power of the Webex Suite with the most comprehensive coverage across voice, video, messaging, and shared content.
Uniphore introduced its Business AI Cloud as a foundation for solving the enterprise “three-body problem,” where data systems, AI initiatives, and business goals often pull in competing directions. They designed the platform around principles of composability, zero-copy data architecture, built-in governance, and agent-to-agent collaboration, enabling enterprises to embrace complexity without creating chaos.
Observability
Harness announced Harness AI, a platform that applies automation and intelligence to every stage after code. They designed it to remove bottlenecks in testing, security, deployment, and optimization, unifying fragmented workflows into a faster, safer, and more scalable delivery system.
Quantum
Aliro joined leaders at the Quantum Leadership Summit: Talent, Technology & Transformation, hosted by Quantum Coast Capital and Meaningful Ventures 2.0. They shared why quantum networking is strategically critical and ready for deployment today, highlighting its use of uncrackable, physics-based secure communications over existing telecom fiber, room-temperature electronics, and proven entanglement protocols.
Security
GetReal Security launched GetReal Protect for Webex by Cisco, expanding real-time deepfake protection across the videoconferencing attack surface. With deepfake-driven breaches rising, GetReal Protect delivers frictionless user protection while providing IT and security teams with timestamped evidence, integrations with existing workflows, and an Identity Threat Graph that maps the full "blast radius" of malicious deepfakes in virtual meetings.
Island unveiled Lighthouse, a new capability in its Enterprise Browser that turns everyday browser activity into actionable intelligence for IT teams. They designed it to deliver a real-time, 360-degree view of security, productivity, and compliance, categorizing and prioritizing insights such as weak passwords, data leakage risks, and app performance issues.
Mitiga showcased its Forensic Data Lake, a distributed, agentless platform built on Databricks that collects and enriches over 1,000 days of cloud, SaaS, and identity logs without requiring SIEM dependencies or moving data out of region. They emphasized how the system provides deep visibility by correlating logs with configuration snapshots, enabling accurate investigation even as environments change.
SpecterOps released its inaugural State of Attack Path Management report, revealing critical gaps in how organizations approach identity security. The research shows that while 89% of security leaders recognize identity as their top risk, most lack visibility into actual attack paths through their environment.
StrongDM emphasized the importance of access certification as a way to enforce least privilege at scale and prove compliance. They outlined how organizations can move beyond manual, spreadsheet-driven reviews by using centralized access visibility, automated certification workflows, just-in-time permissions, and real-time audit trails.
TrustCloud addressed the growing challenge of Shadow IT, describing it as an invisible layer of risk that has become a norm in modern enterprises. They explained how their platform helps organizations automatically discover unsanctioned applications, flag unauthorized connections, and map them to compliance frameworks. They highlighted capabilities such as real-time alerts, governance workflows, and tools like TrustRegister and TrustLens, which give security leaders centralized visibility and control.