Red Canary

Market position

Red Canary is described as a pioneer and recognized leader in the managed detection and response market, named a Leader in the Forrester Wave for Managed Detection and Response for three consecutive years and featured in the Gartner Market Guide for MDR for seven consecutive years. The broader MDR market was projected to reach $1.9 billion by 2024. Other funded players in the managed security space during the same period included ReliaQuest and Arctic Wolf.

Red Canary positions its multi-dimensional analysis approach - combining behavioral and binary analysis, anomaly analytics and threat intelligence, followed by expert human review - against competing services that rely on fewer detection avenues, with the aim of eliminating false positives so that every delivered detection is actionable. Partners have cited its willingness to share intelligence and detection methodology, and its research into specific attacker techniques and threat actors, as differentiators.

Technology

The platform processes 300-400 terabytes of telemetry per day, applying behavioral and binary analysis, anomaly detection in analytics, and threat intelligence enrichment from partners such as Threat Recon and Farsight Security, with human security engineers acting as a final validation layer. Coverage spans endpoints, identity, network and cloud workloads, and the company describes the use of agentic AI, behavioral analytics and global threat intelligence together with automated remediation workflows. Red Canary reports 99.6% detection accuracy, investigations up to 10 times faster, and a 75% reduction in realized risk per endpoint. It also maintains Atomic Red Team, an open source library of security tests mapped to MITRE ATT&CK.

Go-to-market

The company sells directly and through channel partners and managed security solution providers, and reported doubling growth in customers from channel partners in the year before its Series C. Proceeds from the 2021 round were earmarked in part for expanding sales and marketing teams to accelerate customer growth and reach.

Organizations of all sizes seeking to outsource or augment threat detection and response, ranging from global Fortune 500 companies to roughly 100-employee businesses. Customers span multiple industries and geographies, including pharmaceutical and defense and intelligence contracting, and the company also serves channel partners and security solution providers.

Geography

Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with roots in Sterling, Virginia, where its Kyrus-Tech incubator was based. The workforce has been distributed since early days, with about half in Denver and the remainder remote. Customers are located in the United States and in markets outside it.

History

After spinning out of Kyrus-Tech in February 2014, Red Canary raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Kyrus and announced partnerships with Carbon Black, Threat Recon and Farsight Security. The company grew from a team of roughly 10-25 people, split between Denver and remote locations, to 249 employees by the time of its 2021 Series C, a 49 percent increase over the prior year. Summit Partners first partnered with the company in 2019 and led an $81 million follow-on Series C in 2021, bringing total outside funding to more than $125 million. In May 2025, Zscaler signed a definitive agreement to acquire the company, with closing expected in August 2025.

Risks & controversies

Zscaler's announcement identified execution risks associated with the transaction, including the ability to integrate Red Canary's technology into Zscaler's cloud platform and to retain key Red Canary employees after closing, and noted the acquisition remained subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.