2024 has been a transformative year for the OnSecurity team, marked by progress and significant milestones. To celebrate the company’s achievements and reflect on its journey thus far, I had the privilege of sitting down with OnSecurity’s CEO, Conor O’Neill, for an insightful conversation.
What’s been going on in the past year?
Conor begins by outlining the year’s major achievements. “I think the most noticeable change is our employee headcount. In 2024, the team grew from 24 to 50, which was an enormous difference, especially for a smaller business.”
While OnSecurity irreverently had ambitions to increase their headcount in lieu with increased business, a particularly pivotal moment in the company’s journey enabled the team to accelerate the realisation of this vision. “The headcount growth wouldn’t have been nearly as significant if it wasn’t for securing £5.5million in Series A funding from Gresham House Ventures in June, which we were immensely grateful for. We wouldn’t have gotten so far without the support of our customers and team. It was a really nice moment.”
Since then, OnSecurity has continually been on a roll, almost doubling monthly revenue since June. The business’s progress cannot be attributed to a single function but rather the combined efforts of a dedicated team, generous investors, and supportive customer base.
Let’s delve into some of Conor’s 2024 highlights…
How has the company grown/evolved over the past year?
The past year has been perhaps the most revolutionary period of all at OnSecurity, marked by its impressive employee headcount increase, fundamental business operational changes, and a brand-new office space. “We have focused on preparing the business to scale rapidly over the next number of years.” Conor explains that while OnSecurity has great ambitions, achieving them also requires implementing smaller, functional changes to ensure everything runs smoothly. “This has meant implementing many fundamental changes in how the business operates in order to ensure we are mature enough to cope with the rapid growth which investment will bring over the medium term.”
“We are working hard to create robust processes and strong leadership teams to shape the business as we move into the next phase of our growth.”
Looking back, what are you most proud of from this year?
Conor expresses that he is immensely proud of the company in general this year.
However, one point of pride in particular is the resilience of the company culture. Both the existing OnSecurity employees, and the new-comers to the team, have adapted excellently to the businesses’ upscaling, collectively creating a comfortable and affable work environment for everybody. “My biggest worry going into this year was that the company culture would change with the growth in personnel we’ve had, but I think we’ve done a really good job in hiring people who are a great fit for the company, and I think for the most part the organisation has the same ‘feel’ to it as it had when we were bootstrapped.”
What is the vision for the company going into the new year?
“Our vision will always be the same - we want to simplify pentesting and make it as easy as possible for our customers to procure and manage pentest programmes. We will continue to focus relentlessly on this vision.
“One of our key focuses for next year is the rollout of our pentest subscription offering, early testing with customers of this has had good take up, so we will look to improve this and roll it out to all customers as we progress through the new year.”
There is a palpable excitement for the new year amongst the team, with even greater aspirations and expectations being established for 2025. It has been a privilege to be part of this transformative year with OnSecurity, and we anticipate we will have just as much progress to review and celebrate this time next year.
