Startup Deep Dive : Sequretek — how two forty-something founders built a Rs 52 crore cyber business on about $13 million

Two men in their forties walked away from senior jobs — one running Symantec’s business across South Asia, the other coming off a US private-equity career — and put about $750,000 of their own money into a cybersecurity company in Mumbai in 2013. Twelve years later that company, Sequretek, reported revenue of about ₹52 crore (about $5.4 million at $1 ≈ ₹96.0) for the year to 31 March 2025, having raised only around $13 million in total. That is a rounding error next to what venture-heavy security rivals burn.

The bet was contrarian in three ways at once: older founders in a young-founder market, a tiny capital base in a capital-hungry industry, and a decision to build products for Indian enterprises and small businesses that global vendors had largely ignored. This is how Sequretek got from a self-funded idea to an AI-native platform monitoring billions of security events a day — and where the model still looks fragile.

Quick facts

What they do

Sequretek sells cybersecurity to enterprises and mid-market companies, mostly business-to-business. Its offering is bundled under one brand, Percept, which the company positions as a single platform rather than a stack of point tools. The core pieces:

• Percept XDR — extended detection and response; the company says it uses deep-learning models for predictive threat detection (company-stated).
• Percept Identity (IGA) — identity governance and administration, controlling who can access what; this grew out of Sequretek’s earlier product “Avatar”.
• Percept EDR — endpoint detection and response, the successor to its early “Kawach” product.
• Percept Compliance Manager / NG SIEM — security information and event management plus compliance reporting.
• Managed Detection and Response (MDR) — a 24×7 security operations service run for clients who lack in-house teams.

The pitch is consolidation: replace several licences and vendors with one platform and one managed service, aimed at Indian buyers who found global suites expensive and over-engineered for their needs.

The origin

Pankit Desai and Anand Naik were not first-time founders reaching for a trend. Naik had spent years inside the industry, latterly as the managing director for India and SAARC at Symantec, after roles at IBM and Sun Microsystems. Desai came from senior positions across Rolta, NTT Data and IBM, with a long stint in North America. They had worked together before, at IBM, and were related — the trust already existed.

Naik’s reading of the market, as he later told interviewers, rested on three observations: digital transformation was sweeping Indian business; the country produced almost no world-class security products of its own; and the global incumbents had slowed their innovation while treating India as an afterthought. Desai framed it in terms of timing and appetite for risk — a sense that they had a few years of hard, nose-to-the-ground building left in them before it got too late. In 2013 they started Sequretek in Mumbai with a small group of like-minded engineers and their own capital, roughly $750,000 to begin with (company-stated).

The gap they aimed at was real and documented. By the founders’ own citation of the market, a large share of Indian small and mid-sized businesses were being attacked and losing serious money — yet the established vendors had little tailored, affordable answer for that segment. Sequretek set out to be that answer, and to prove an Indian company could build security software rather than merely resell someone else’s.

The struggle years

The early years were about survival, not scale. The company, in the founders’ telling, “grew through its own travails of building an organization, scale, and credibility before fund raising became a reality.” In plain terms: they had to earn revenue and reference customers the hard way before investors would write cheques, and that took years.

Until 2017 Sequretek sold only in India, and only two products — Avatar and Kawach — customised deal by deal for each enterprise. That is a slow, services-heavy way to grow a software company: every sale is bespoke, margins are thin, and the product does not compound the way a standardised platform does. Building trust was its own battle. Selling security to a bank or insurer means convincing a risk-averse buyer to hand a young, unknown vendor the keys to its defences.

Profitability was never smooth. For the year ended March 2023, reported figures show revenue rising about 17.7% but profit falling sharply — a swing of roughly 210% that took the company into a loss (aggregator data). For a firm that had raised comparatively little, a loss year is not an abstraction; it is a direct claim on a thin cash cushion. The founders kept the business narrow and disciplined rather than chasing growth it could not fund.

The turning point

The turn came from two moves that reinforced each other. The first was product: Sequretek stopped selling two India-only, custom-built tools and consolidated everything into the Percept platform — a standardised, AI-native suite it could sell repeatedly and, crucially, sell abroad. That reframing changed the company from a boutique security-services shop into a product company with a recurring model.

The second was capital and geography. In November 2023 Sequretek raised an $8 million Series A led by Omidyar Network India, with the Narottam Sekhsaria Family Office and venture-debt firm Alteria Capital participating (Inc42). The money was earmarked for US and global expansion and for pushing adoption in the underserved small-and-medium segment. On one side of the turn the company was India-only with two bespoke products and roughly ₹38 crore in revenue in an earlier fiscal (The Quint); on the other, it was running a platform monitoring about 4 billion security events a day for 150-plus customers, with a US base and revenue of about ₹52 crore by FY25 (reported). The platform bet, funded by a modest but well-aimed round, is what let a self-funded outfit start looking like a scalable one.

The money behind it

Sequretek’s funding history is notable for how little it needed. The shape, by reported round:

• Founders’ own capital — about $750,000 at the start, from 2013 (company-stated).
• Angel round — 2016 (Tracxn).
• Seed led by GVFL (Gujarat Venture Finance) — about $1 million, 2017 (StartupTalky/Tracxn).
• Convertible note with Unicorn India Ventures — about $3.7 million, 2018 (StartupTalky).
• FIS Fintech Accelerator — 2020 (StartupTalky).
• Series A led by Omidyar Network India — $8 million (about $5.5 million in equity plus venture debt), November 2023, with Narottam Sekhsaria Family Office and Alteria Capital (Inc42).

On the total raised, sources differ. Tracxn and Crunchbase put cumulative funding at about $13 million across roughly 10 rounds; the founders have separately described total funding of around ₹100 crore (The Quint). The two are broadly consistent given exchange rates, and either way the number is small for a security firm competing with global vendors. Valuation has not been publicly disclosed for any round. Notable that the cap table also drew strategic names over time — HDFC Bank and FIS appear among backers in aggregator records — reflecting the company’s roots in financial-services security.

How it makes money

The business earns through a mix of software subscriptions and managed services:

• Platform subscriptions — recurring fees for the Percept modules (XDR, identity, endpoint, compliance), typically annual and per-scope.
• Managed detection and response — ongoing fees for Sequretek’s security operations centre to monitor and respond on the client’s behalf, a service-heavy revenue line tied to analyst headcount.
• Implementation and customisation — the legacy of its bespoke-selling years, still relevant for large enterprise deployments.

Where the margin sits: recurring subscription revenue is the high-quality part, and the company has cited retention above 80% in its subscription business (company-stated) — a sign customers renew once embedded. The managed-services side brings sticky, predictable revenue but carries people costs, so it dilutes margin relative to pure software. The part outsiders get wrong is assuming a small Indian security vendor is really a reseller; Sequretek’s claim is that it owns its detection models and platform, which is what lets it price a subscription rather than pass through someone else’s licence.

Go-to-market has shifted from purely direct sales toward a partner-led ecosystem, and from India-only toward the US, with stated ambitions in Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa.

The numbers

Granular, year-by-year profit figures sit behind paywalled filings, which is itself worth flagging: a private company at this scale discloses little publicly. The reliable anchors are the revenue trajectory and the reported growth and EBITDA direction.

Read together: revenue has climbed steadily from the high-thirties to around ₹52 crore, growth has been positive but is decelerating from the founders’ earlier 35–40% annual pace (company-stated, 2023), and losses appear to be narrowing as EBITDA improves. No audited net-profit figure could be verified in free sources, so it is deliberately left blank rather than estimated.

Where the money comes from

The revenue mix and its concentration:

• By sector — strongest in banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI); early reference clients included HDFC Bank and IDBI Federal (company-stated). The company describes itself as industry-agnostic and is pushing into pharma, retail, logistics, manufacturing and services.
• By geography — historically India-heavy; the US is now a stated growth engine, with the primary corporate base moved there while delivery and R&D stay in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.
• By product vs service — a blend of platform subscriptions and managed-services fees, with subscription retention above 80% (company-stated).

The surprise is the scale of what the platform processes relative to the company’s size. Sequretek has said Percept monitors on the order of 4 billion security events a day for 150-plus customers (Inc42, 2023) — a data-processing footprint far larger than its ₹52 crore revenue would suggest, which is exactly the leverage an AI-native detection platform is supposed to create.

The risks

• Fighting giants with a slingshot. Aggregators rank Sequretek around 31st among 600-plus active competitors, against the likes of Cisco, Rapid7 and Imperva. Those rivals have R&D and sales budgets many times Sequretek’s entire capital raised (about $13 million). Sustained price and feature pressure is structural, not cyclical.
• Thin capital, real losses. The company swung to a loss in FY23 and its EBITDA, while improving, was still working toward breakeven in FY25 (Tofler). With little funding raised, there is limited room for a prolonged cash-burning push, particularly an expensive US expansion.
• People-dependence. The managed-services model ties revenue to skilled analysts in a market with a chronic cybersecurity-talent shortage; scaling headcount is both a cost and a hiring risk.
• Concentration. A revenue base weighted toward BFSI means exposure to that sector’s budget cycles and to shifting data-localisation and compliance rules.
• Disclosure opacity. As a private company it discloses little; investors and customers rely on aggregator estimates and company statements, which vary (for example, headcount is reported anywhere from about 215–256 on payroll to a founder-cited 400+).

The takeaway

Sequretek’s lesson is that capital efficiency can be a strategy, not just a constraint. Most security startups that chase global incumbents do it by raising enormous rounds and burning to buy growth. Sequretek raised roughly $13 million in twelve years, stayed close to loss-making discipline, and used a single well-aimed round to fund the one move that mattered — turning bespoke tools into a repeatable platform. The transferable idea is narrow focus plus timing: pick a segment the giants ignore, build real product rather than resell, and spend only when a specific unlock (a platform, a new geography) is in front of you. Whether that discipline survives an American expansion against far richer rivals is the open question — but the first twelve years are a case study in doing more with less.

Frequently asked questions

Who founded Sequretek and when?

Sequretek was founded in 2013 in Mumbai by Pankit Desai and Anand Naik. The legal entity, Sequretek IT Solutions Private Limited (CIN U72300MH2013PTC249847), was incorporated on 6 November 2013 and is registered with the ROC in Mumbai. Naik previously led Symantec’s business in India and SAARC; Desai came from senior roles at firms including Rolta, NTT Data and IBM.

What does Sequretek sell?

It sells cybersecurity to enterprises and mid-market firms under one platform, Percept, spanning extended detection and response (XDR), identity governance, endpoint protection and compliance, plus a 24×7 managed detection and response service. The company positions this as a consolidation play against buying multiple separate security tools.

How much money has Sequretek raised?

Aggregators put total funding at about $13 million across roughly 10 rounds; the founders have described total funding of around ₹100 crore. The largest disclosed round was an $8 million Series A led by Omidyar Network India in November 2023, with the Narottam Sekhsaria Family Office and Alteria Capital participating. Valuation has not been publicly disclosed.

What is Sequretek’s revenue?

Sequretek reported revenue of about ₹52 crore for the year ended 31 March 2025 (FY25), up roughly 12.9% year on year, with EBITDA improving about 100.3% toward breakeven (Tofler). An earlier fiscal put revenue around ₹38 crore (The Quint). Audited net-profit figures are not available in free public sources.

Is Sequretek profitable or listed?

Sequretek is a private, venture-backed company and is not listed on any exchange. Reported data shows it swung to a loss in FY23, though its EBITDA was improving in FY25. A precise, audited profit or loss figure could not be verified in free filings.

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• Ministry of Corporate Affairs / ZaubaCorp — Sequretek IT Solutions Private Limited, CIN and incorporation record (accessed September 2026)
• Inc42 — “Sequretek Secures $8 Mn Funding To Fuel Expansion” (November 2023)
• Inc42 — “Monitoring 10 Cr Cyber Security Incidents Daily: How Startup Sequretek Aims To Leverage A $1 Bn Security Market” (2021)
• The Quint — “Ahoy, a Lifeline in a Vast Deep Ocean” profile of Sequretek (2022)
• CrazyEngineers — Founders’ Circuit interview with Pankit Desai (2024)
• StartupTalky — Sequretek company/funding story (accessed September 2026)
• Tracxn — Sequretek company and legal-entity profiles, financials and headcount (accessed September 2026)
• Tofler — Sequretek IT Solutions financial summary, FY25 revenue growth and EBITDA (accessed September 2026)
• The Company Check — Sequretek FY25 revenue (about ₹52 crore) (accessed September 2026)
• Crunchbase — Sequretek funding total and investors (accessed September 2026)
• Trading Economics — USD/INR reference rate, 18 September 2026

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