The Old Model is Broken
Traditional security follows a predictable pattern: ship features, grow fast, get hacked or face compliance requirements, bolt on security. This approach is expensive, disruptive, and often too late.
We've seen portfolio companies spend 6-12 months remediating security debt before an enterprise sale or acquisition. Engineering velocity drops. Morale suffers. Customers lose trust.
Security as Competitive Advantage
Forward-thinking companies are inverting this model. They recognize that security is:
A sales accelerator: Enterprise security reviews happen for every vendor. Companies that pass quickly win deals faster. We've seen 30-40% faster sales cycles for security-mature startups.
A trust signal: In sensitive industries (healthcare, finance, infrastructure), security posture is table stakes. Being SOC 2 compliant isn't enough—customers want to see security is cultural.
An engineering investment: Secure architectures are often simpler architectures. Least-privilege design, immutable infrastructure, and zero-trust networking create more maintainable systems.
How We Help
When a company joins the GASJ portfolio, we conduct a security baseline assessment within 90 days. Not a checkbox audit—a genuine evaluation of architecture, practices, and culture.
From there, we help with:
Foundation: SSO, audit logging, secrets management, and access control. Every company needs these; few implement them well.
Compliance: SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI where relevant. We've done this dozens of times and can accelerate timeline significantly.
Product Security: SAST/DAST integration, dependency scanning, secure development training. Make security part of the CI/CD pipeline.
Incident Readiness: Runbooks, tabletop exercises, communication templates. When (not if) something goes wrong, be ready.
The GASJ Security Baseline
Every portfolio company commits to our security baseline within 12 months:
This isn't heroic. It's hygiene. But most companies don't do it until they have to.
Looking Forward
Security threats evolve constantly. AI-generated phishing, supply chain attacks, and nation-state actors targeting infrastructure companies are all accelerating.
We're investing in security-native portfolio companies (Armature, Sentinel AI) because we believe the market for proactive security will grow dramatically. And we're ensuring every company we own is prepared for the threat landscape of the next decade.
Security isn't a cost center. It's a feature. Treat it as such.