Swimlane’s low-code finds “sweet spot” between no-code and legacy SOAR security automation 

Low-code security automation provider Swimlane has captured lots of investor interest due to its low-code security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) platform that can ingest and enrich data from telemetry throughout cloud, IoT and edge computing environments. 

Many enterprises are turning to SOAR to improve their security maturity, while taking the burden off of security teams who’ve struggled to keep up with the volume and complexity of modern threats. 

Today, Swimlane announced it has raised $70 million as part of a growth funding round led by Activate Capital. The organization intends to use the investment to scale its growth and operations internationally. 

A force multiplier for modern security teams 

The funding comes as security automation is becoming a must-have for security teams, amid a security skills shortage of 2.7 million professionals, and a high-pressure working environment where analysts are overburdened by the volume of alerts. 

Today, many security teams are being pushed to the limit, to the point where 45% of security professionals have considered quitting the industry altogether. The writing on the wall is that organizations need to change how they’re approaching security operations, and fast. 

“Security teams continue to face pervasive challenges, including navigating a global security talent shortage, keeping up with an ever-changing threat landscape and navigating complexity across security environments due to siloed tools, teams and processes,” said CEO of Swimlane, James Brear. 

Brear highlights that while security vendors offer organizations solutions like SIEM, EDR and XDR to help simplify security operations, these have fallen short of offering a one-size-fits-all solution. 

“What’s needed is a centralized system-of-record that helps security teams analyze the hard-to-reach telemetry and take action as close as possible to the point of inception,” Brear said. 

This is precisely the challenge that Swimlane addresses, providing an automation platform that gathers data from throughout the environment as part of an open ecosystem, and compiling it in a single location so that analysts can quickly respond to security incidents. 

What’s happening in the the SOAR market 

With the challenges of modern security teams well-known among modern enterprises, many organizations are investing in security automation to enhance their operations. It’s for this reason that the SOAR market is in a state of growth, expected to reach a value of $2 billion by 2025.

While Swimlane is positioning itself as a promising competitor in the market, it’s competing against some entrenched competitors, like Palo Alto Networks, which offers a solution called Cortex XSOAR that can automate incident response processes with automated playbooks to help streamline security responses to data breaches. 

Palo Alto Networks also recently announced raising third-quarter revenue of $1.4 billion. 

It’s also competing against Google, which acquired Siemplify at the start of this year for $500 million, a SOAR platform that offers playbook automation, case management and integrated threat intelligence as part of a single platform. 

However, for Brear, Swimlane’s low-code accessibility and ease of use for nontechnical users is what sets it apart from many competing solutions. 

“Our low-code approach to security automation is the sweet spot between boxed-in no-code offerings and the legacy full-code approach delivered through traditional security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) platforms that require developers who are capable of complex manual coding,” Brear said.