Transcript
F funding round. The company added the new funding triples its valuation from a year ago to $9 billion. Joe Iantosca joins us now. He is Sierra's CFO. Joins me here in studio. Congratulations. Those are some amazing numbers. Way to go. Thank you, JD. Thank you for having me. $400 million in new capital. Where does it go? The threat landscape is changing every day. And we are going to invest heavily into product, product, and more product. We're bringing to market advanced capabilities to really enable the enterprise to help say yes to AI and stay ahead of the bad guys. You talk products, products, products. For any of our viewers a bit unfamiliar, what is that type of product? Those end goals and ambitions you hope to deploy that capital to? Of course, AI runs on two things. Compute, and you guys talk a lot about the companies like NVIDIA, and data. And Sierra is really a data and AI security company that's helping the enterprise make sense of their data to help feed these AI models and do it in a way that's secure and really allows them to get the benefits of it without letting the bad guys take advantage of it in a way that really harms their stance. How is Sierra able to effectively boost its valuation so rapidly? We're really focused on the customer at the end of the day. And we let the customer be our guiding light. We're not focused on anything besides really allowing the customers to use AI for their enterprise. Biggest questions clients have regarding cybersecurity and data security, the rest of us on the outside have our questions, but the clients directly, I've got to imagine there's no shortage of pain points that they come to. They and you, I'm sure, confidently feel Sierra is uniquely positioned to address. It's a good point. There's a common theme across every boardroom in the world right now. And the question that's being asked is, how are we using AI to push our business forward? And Sierra is really building products all oriented around allowing the enterprise to say yes. The enterprise is progressing itself. The bad guys also have access to these tools. And our job is really to stay one step ahead of them. How does Sierra continue to stand out from other competitors in the space? We are hiring the best people. We are focused on very, very aggressive expansion. And we're going to bring new products to market at a pace that's never been seen before. Are there new products, new services, new help with AI that you're able to embrace that maybe you did not even previously see coming? I mean, I ask that because the rules of the road for AI, they're changing seemingly by the day. I feel like it's a full-time job just to try and keep up with where the technology is one week to another. It is a very dynamic world that we live in. And our job is to keep our finger on the pulse of that. And at the end of the day, we let our customers be the guiding light. We talk to them every day. We ask them about their business problems. And our job is to make sure that we're staying many steps ahead of them from that perspective. Joe, what most excites you about not just where the underlying technology is right now, but where Sierra is meeting the challenges of the moment as we roll ahead into 2026? These are some of the hardest problems that exist in our lifetime. And we love the challenge. We love being with our customers every day. And we truly believe that we can make a big difference in this world in terms of the responsible use of AI. Biggest headwinds, biggest tailwinds. The opportunities as well as the challenges that you see for your space this year. This market is growing very quickly. And I think that creates opportunities. But it also creates challenges in terms of focus. And that's why we're, at the end of the day, focused on our customers' needs. In terms of those customers' needs, talk to me about, finally, what is next for Sierra? You're getting things down the pike, I got no doubt. You're cooking on a lot of things you can't quite yet reveal. But to any degree, you're comfortable lifting back that curtain and giving us some insight about what the road ahead looks like for the firm. Yeah, we've expanded internationally. Over the last year, we've grown into 15 markets worldwide. And we're going to continue that expansion. We've grown the employee base to 1,100 people globally. And we'll continue to grow that meaningfully over the next year. And it's all focused on market expansion and product. Joe Iantosca is the CFO of Sierra. Join us here at the big board to make the case. Congratulations. A ton of success for you, you, Tom, and the team. You're welcome back anytime. Great to have you here this morning. Thank you, J.D. All right.
