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Leadership Team
Experts in Preemptive Threat Exposure Management and security research.
Our mission is simple: stop bad actors and help defenders stay ahead of external threats.
Founder Story
Like all the greatest innovations, Searchlight Cyber was born out of the need to solve a problem: criminals acting with impunity on the dark web.
In 2017, founders and friends Ben Jones, an aerospace defence engineer, and Dr Gareth Owenson, a cyber defence academic and Tor expert, combined their skills, knowledge, and experience to create a world-leading suite of dark web intelligence products.
Building on this foundation of world-class dark web intelligence, Searchlight Cyber has grown into a leader in Preemptive Threat Exposure Management. Our agentless platform helps organizations to detect and protect themselves from emerging cybercriminal threats to their attack surface and their extended attack surface, unifying Attack Surface Management and threat intelligence capabilities – all designed to separate the signal from the noise.
In 2021, we expanded our international presence, opening a US headquarters in Washington, DC. Since then, the company has continued on a rapid growth trajectory, which included a new round of funding from Boston-based Charlesbank Capital Partners in January 2024. In 2025, Searchlight Cyber acquired attack surface management leaders Assetnote and cyber risk management company Intangic to further enhance our external threat monitoring capabilities.
Today, we provide governments, law enforcement agencies, and enterprises around the world with access to external threat intelligence, attack-surface telemetry, and expert security research led by Shubham Shah (top 50 HackerOne bug bounty hunter) – empowering them in their fight against criminal activity across the clear, deep, and dark web.
Key moments in our history
Join our team
Take your next career step at Searchlight Cyber and work for a company that makes a difference
The Searchlight difference
We pre-emptively defend organizations against threats they haven’t even considered. Our world-class security research, combined with advanced technology, scans your entire attack surface 96% faster than leading solutions – catching risks before attackers can exploit them.
See every asset and reduce your risk
It only takes one unknown asset to cause a breach. The one you don’t see, monitor, or manage effectively is the one that can lead to serious consequences. Hear our SVP of ASM, Michael Gianarakis, explain more.
Protect your extended attack surface with dark web intelligence
In this short clip our founders, Dr. Gareth Owenson and Ben Jones, explain how the dark web works, what criminality it contains, and the challenges it creates for law enforcement and enterprise security teams.
Identify hidden assets and emerging threats before attackers can exploit them
Data points recaptured
+475B
From the clear, deep, & dark web
Assets monitored
+3M
Across our customers
Live and historic data from
+850K
Dark web sites
