Ray Rothrock
Founder, FiftySix Investments. On 1 show, 3 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorexecutiveengineerauthor@rayrothrock ↗LinkedIn ↗rayrothrock.com ↗
He spent 25 years as a partner at Venrock leading investments in cybersecurity and energy infrastructure before serving as CEO of RedSeal from 2014 to 2020. A former National Venture Capital Association chairman, he authored Digital Resilience and invests in seed-stage projects through FiftySix Investments.
1shows
3appearances
43statements
5resolved
3supported
2contradicted
60%fully supported
Everything Ray Rothrock said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
RedSeal's enterprise and government clients are experiencing foreign cyber interference
“I actually have customers that are dealing with some of this international interference and we're seeing it in their, they're seeing it in their networks commercial and government.”
Rothrock: RedSeal accepted majority takeover amid cash stress and employee attrition
“The stresses had to do with cash, cash flow we actually grew cash over the last year, but not without a lot of stress on the team.
I'd had some attrition that I didn't like cause I couldn't afford things as much as I wanted to.
And honestly growth rate was sa…”
Startups facing layoffs should cut engineering before sales, says Rothrock
“Well, I mean, there's only two things to do in a startup company. You make product or sell product. And to reduce either of those seems to me a little foolhardy. If you have to, I would actually reduce the engineering because you really do need that top line f…”
Rothrock: Red Seal serves 240 clients, including all DoD and intel agencies
“About 240. Mostly all global 2000 and federal. We have every intel agency, all of the DOD, their services, and many of the civilian agencies are our customers.”
Rothrock: Red Seal achieved a 50% net margin in Q3
“I brought in twice in business in Q three that I spent on expenses two times. So if I made, yeah, if I made two dollars, I only had a dollar of expense and that's the bottom line, not the gross margin, but the net margin of the company.”
Rothrock: Bleeding-edge tech companies typically do not use RedSeal
“Interestingly, we're not people who have cutting edge capabilities and really are on the hairy bleeding edge of things. They don't typically use this.”
Rothrock: RedSeal faces churn playing catch-up with vendor updates
“Literally, so sometimes configuration information for all the routing equipment, those routing equipment guys, Cisco, Palo Alto, Checkpoint, Fortinet, Juniper, all of them, they change their stuff all the time. And occasionally we get So they upgrade our softw…”
Rothrock: Symphony Technology Group acquired over 50% of RedSeal
“It's the, they bought more than 50%, yeah.”
RedSeal is deployed across all US intel agencies and military branches
“We're in all the intel agencies, all the military, and most of the civilian side of the government.”
RedSeal chose company-wide pay cuts over furloughs to preserve jobs
“Well, no furlough, just reduction in pay. Part of my strategy was to keep everybody employed, Keep everybody working on the problems to keep supporting our customer base.”
RedSeal implemented uniform, across-the-board pay cuts with zero executive exemptions
“No, everybody took the same. My goal was that we're gonna, we're all gonna sacrifice a little bit in order to survive. There are no special dispensations.”
Foreign attackers are deploying observation malware and routing backdoors
“What they're doing, they are putting in observers malware that sits and observes primarily being able to alter routing, for example just like what Sony did, you know, at the Sony situation, they put in malware that was, had a back door that was shipping every …”
Rothrock: Most cyber attacks are already inside enterprise networks
“In fact, most attacks are inside now. They're already happening as we speak.”
Rothrock: Average detection-to-remediation time is 200 days
“The average time from detection to remediation is 200 days.”
Rothrock: RedSeal spent $2.5M–$3M acquiring $31M DISA contract
“So that customer is DISA and it is a five year deal. So 31,000,005 years. We probably spent two and a half, three million dollars to get that deal over two, three years.”
Rothrock: RedSeal is willing to spend first-year ACV on customer acquisition
“Probably on average, I'm willing to spend it when the first years yeah, I'll say yes.”
Rothrock: Deep network integration creates the greatest friction in cyber software deployment
“The biggest friction to deployment is how embedded is the technology. There's a lot of soft, there's a lot of cyber software that just sits in front of things. That's easy to install very quick. You download it, put it on a device and off you go.”
Rothrock: RedSeal's typical entry contract generates $200,000 to $300,000
“Most people start small and expand over time. So a typical entry point would be 500 routers. And so that'll, you know, that'll generate, I don't know three, two or 300,000 dollars, and then as it expands, it gets bigger, and that's the way it works.”
Rothrock: RedSeal has surpassed $50 million in annual revenue
“And now we've grown to about, well, we're over fifty million now.”
Rothrock: RedSeal customer cohorts expand 20% to 30% annually
“Well, some of them doubled. Some of them, on average, probably, I'd say, 20 or 30%.”
Rothrock: RedSeal raised $75 million prior to its Symphony transaction
“Total at that time was about seventy five million.”
Rothrock: RedSeal will achieve full-year profitability
“It depends on the quarter. We will be profitable this year. Last quarter, we're a little under this quarter. We'll be way up. And then Q four will be about a break even.”
Rothrock: RedSeal expects to reach $100 million ARR within three years
“That's our goal would be, you know, in that zone, a hundred million. We think we can do that in the next two to three years.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Ray's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 TOP FOUNDERSLEDGER | Founder, FiftySix Investments | 3 | 43 | 60% 3/5 | full record on Top Founders → |