Censys

IMPORTANT DISAMBIGUATION: This profile (source DB profile_id 10266079, domain censys.io) is for Censys, the cybersecurity / internet-scanning and attack surface management company headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, spun out of University of Michigan academic research (the ZMap scanning project). It is a completely different company from 'Censys Technologies' (censystech.com, profile_id 10028763), a Daytona Beach, Florida-based autonomous drone/aircraft company, which is a separate, unrelated entity already researched elsewhere in this database. This confusion is easy to make because the two companies have nearly identical names; SEC EDGAR filings even show a distinct 'Censys Technologies Corp' (CIK 0001712659, Daytona Beach, FL) that is the drone company, confirming these are legally separate corporations. All research in this file pertains only to the cybersecurity company, censys.io / censys.com. FOUNDING STORY: Censys traces its origins to 2013, when Zakir Durumeric, then a PhD student in computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan, created ZMap, an open-source internet-wide scanning tool. Working in the lab of Professor J. Alex Halderman, Durumeric and colleagues used ZMap to build a continuously updated, searchable database of internet-connected devices and services -- described in a widely cited 2015 USENIX Security paper ('A Search Engine Backed by Internet-Wide Scanning'). MIT Technology Review covered the academic project in December 2015 ('A Search Engine for the Internet's Dirty Secrets'). The technology was commercialized and Censys was formally incorporated as a standalone company in 2017 (University of Michigan Engineering News, Jan 2018), with rights in the underlying technology transferred to Halderman per Wikipedia. Durumeric earned his PhD from Michigan in 2017 and became an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University in September 2018, where he continued to serve as Censys's co-founder and (for a period) chief scientist while the operating company was run by professional management. Halderman remains a University of Michigan CSE professor and is understood to be a co-founder/rights holder in the company; public sourcing did not surface additional named co-founders beyond Durumeric and Halderman, though earlier academic ZMap collaborators (e.g., David Adrian, Michael Bailey) are sometimes informally associated with the project's origins -- these additional names could not be independently confirmed as formal Censys co-founders via a credible source and are therefore omitted from the structured founders list. PRODUCT EVOLUTION: Censys Search launched commercially in 2017, giving researchers and security teams a queryable index of internet-facing hosts, certificates, and services (positioned as a more enterprise/commercially-oriented alternative to the older Shodan search engine). Over time Censys broadened from a pure search/data product into a full External Attack Surface Management (EASM) / Internet Intelligence Platform, adding External Threat Intelligence, a unified 'Censys Platform,' 'Censys Internet Map' (expanded with DNS intelligence in July 2026), 'Censys Adversary Investigations,' a Censys API for integrating data into third-party security tools, and (circa 2023) an AI/natural-language chatbot interface for querying internet data. In 2026 the company doubled down on AI-driven security operations tooling and stood up a dedicated research team, the Censys Advanced Research Collective (ARC), announced March 2026. FUNDING HISTORY (cross-referenced across TechCrunch, VentureBeat, PR Newswire, and Wikipedia): (1) 2018 seed round of $2.6M (investor list not confirmed via a source in this research pass); (2) Series A of $15.5M announced ~August 5, 2020, led by Google's GV and Decibel Partners, with Greylock Partners participating (VentureBeat); (3) Series B of $35M announced January 27, 2022, led by Intel Capital, coinciding with a new CEO (TechCrunch); (4) Series C of $50M equity plus $25M debt financing (total $75M) announced October 24, 2023, led by Decibel Partners with GV, Greylock, Intel Capital, Ascension Ventures, Four Rivers Partners V L.P., and accounts managed by Hamilton Lane participating -- TechCrunch cited total funding to date at that point of $128.1M; (5) Series D of $40M equity plus $30M debt (total $70M) announced March 30-31, 2026, led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, with Decibel Partners, Greylock Partners, GV, and Intel Capital again participating (PR Newswire, Axios Pro). Wikipedia cites cumulative funding of approximately $149M raised by 2026 (likely an equity-only figure, which does not perfectly reconcile with the debt-inclusive $128.1M figure TechCrunch cited for late 2023 -- this arithmetic discrepancy is noted rather than resolved, since sources differ on whether debt tranches are included in 'total funding raised'). No round's post-money valuation has been publicly disclosed in the sources reviewed. LEADERSHIP HISTORY: CEO leadership has changed hands multiple times. At the time of the 2020 Series A, the CEO was David Corcoran (per VentureBeat). By the January 2022 Series B announcement, Lorne Groe had served as interim CEO before transitioning to CFO/COO, and Brad Brooks (previously CEO of OneLogin, with prior senior roles at DocuSign, Juniper Networks, and Microsoft) was named the new CEO (TechCrunch). Brooks remained CEO through at least October 2023 (Series C) and October 2024 (ODNI contract announcement, where he is quoted as 'Brad Brooks, CEO of Censys'). By the March 2026 Series D announcement, co-founder Zakir Durumeric is identified as 'Founder and CEO,' and org-chart aggregator TheOrg lists him as 'Co-Founder and CEO' alongside a leadership team including Sarah Ashburn (Chief Revenue Officer), Eirik Herskedal (VP Engineering), Jasmine Burns (VP People & Culture), and Tony Garland (Managing Director, Federal). The exact date Durumeric returned to (or resumed) the CEO title was not pinpointed in this research and should be treated as approximate (sometime between late 2024 and early 2026). CUSTOMERS AND MARKET POSITION: Censys has cited the FBI, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Google, and FireEye among customers/partners in press coverage, and in October 2024 won a multi-year contract from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center to supply internet intelligence to U.S. intelligence agencies under a program described as 'Sentinel Horizon.' As of the October 2023 Series C, Censys reported roughly 350,000 free/non-commercial users and over 180 paying customers, with plans to grow headcount from 134 to 150 employees by end of 2023. By July 2026, Censys reported record H1 2026 growth metrics: 400% growth in $1M+ ARR customers, 115% growth in Censys Platform customers, 106% growth in Adversary Investigations customers, 115% ARR growth in APAC and 82% in EMEA, operations in 13 countries serving customers in 46 countries, and being 'trusted by more than 300,000 security practitioners worldwide, including organizations representing over 50% of the Fortune 500' (per the March 2026 Series D release). A third-party estimate (Growjo, lower-confidence source) put employee count at ~202 and annualized revenue around $44.3M as of 2026, with ~29% year-over-year headcount growth; these figures are estimates, not company-disclosed, and are flagged accordingly. NOTABLE PUBLIC-INTEREST MILESTONES: Censys/ZMap-derived scanning has repeatedly been used for public-interest security research, including helping identify vulnerable, internet-exposed industrial control/SCADA and water-treatment systems -- e.g., an early example (~2015) involving Duo Security (later acquired by Cisco) identifying an internet-exposed Dell system tied to a Kentucky water plant, and a 2024 initiative in which Censys researchers identified 400+ unintentionally internet-exposed U.S. water treatment systems, coordinating with the EPA on remediation (covered by Bloomberg, Aug 2024). COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE: Censys's most frequently cited direct competitor is Shodan, another internet-wide device/host search engine; a peer-reviewed NDSS 2021 paper ('Empirical Scanning Analysis of Censys and Shodan') directly compared the two platforms' scan coverage and methodology. Censys also competes in the broader External Attack Surface Management (EASM) / cyber asset intelligence category with vendors such as Palo Alto Networks' Cortex Xpanse (notably, Palo Alto Networks appears in Series D-related coverage/keyword metadata, suggesting a possible investor or partner relationship that could not be fully confirmed), Microsoft's RiskIQ, BitSight, SecurityScorecard, and non-profit efforts like the Shadowserver Foundation, which performs related internet-scanning-based threat intelligence for defenders on a non-commercial basis. CAVEATS/CONFIRMATION GAPS: (a) The Greylock relationship is confirmed via multiple funding-round investor lists (2020 Series A onward) and via Greylock's own portfolio site, but Greylock's own page's characterization of the round as 'Seed' conflicts with press reporting that Greylock's first confirmed public appearance as an investor was the 2020 Series A; no source in this pass definitively states a Greylock investment in the 2018 seed round specifically. (b) No independent confirmation was found that Asheem Chandna (or any Greylock partner) holds a Censys board seat versus simply being the deal's investor of record. (c) Current valuation is undisclosed in every source reviewed. (d) Exact founding date (month/day) and full seed-round investor list were not found in sources reviewed. (e) HQ street address was not confirmed beyond city/state (Ann Arbor, Michigan).

Business model

B2B SaaS / data platform. Censys sells commercial subscriptions to its internet-scanning search engine and attack surface management (ASM) platform to enterprises, government agencies, and security teams, while offering free access to non-commercial researchers and academics.

Subscription (SaaS) licensing of the Censys Platform, Censys Search, and Attack Surface Management/Adversary Investigations products, plus API access tiers; sold directly and through channel/reseller partners (over 100 channel partners as of mid-2026).