Spokane-based RiskLens Inc., a software company that helps businesses and organizations analyze their exposure to cyber risk, reports it’s riding a surge in 2017 customer growth, a direct result of securing work with a number of Fortune 500 companies.

Meanwhile, company co-founder Steve Tabacek says RiskLens soon will form a private-label partnership with a large cybersecurity company that will sell the RiskLens software protection platform under its own brand. He declines to disclose the company’s name.  

RiskLens also declines to reveal annual revenue, but Tabacek says the company closed 2017 with more than 60 percent year-over-year growth in recurring revenue.

“Business is just going up and up,” Tabacek says. “The issue of cybersecurity has moved to the mainstream. And the fact the Securities Exchange Commission last year set out guidelines for companies to protect themselves and their customers is helping to fuel our growth.”

Tabacek says RiskLens now has 40 Fortune 500 clients, 10 of which are among the Fortune 100.

By the end of this week, Risk Lens expects to have hired five new employees, a mix of software engineers and data analysts, he says.

 “I can say that by the end of March, we’ll have more than 50 total employees, with close to 30 of them in Spokane,” Tabacek says.

More than half of the company’s workforce is based here. Risk Lens has a sales and marketing team based in Reston, Va., and a professional services department in Columbus, Ohio.

Spokane entrepreneur Tom Simpson, an angel investing fund adviser and organizer, formed a family of angel funds called Kick-Start, one of which was an early RiskLens investor.

Last year, Kick-Start; Philadelphia-based Osage Venture Partners; Washington, D.C.-based Paladin Capital Group; and Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Technologies Capital contributed a combined $5 million in venture capital to the company.

Tabacek says some of that investment capital went to the recent hiring of Jesse Sun as vice president of sales, and Stephen Ward as vice president of marketing.

Founded in 2011 by Jack Jones and Tabacek, RiskLens operates in a 4,000-square-foot suite on the ninth floor of the Chase Financial Center, at 601 W. Main in downtown Spokane.

Almost seven years ago, Jones and Tabacek pitched their idea of starting a software company built to analyze exposure to cyber risk.

It was a proposal that potential investors in Silicon Valley were excited about, but those investors attached a condition to the funding.

“They would only back us if we moved to Silicon Valley,” Tabacek says. “They said we’d never be able to do this in Spokane. They didn’t think we’d have the engineering talent here.”

Tabacek says RiskLens has attracted graduates with technology-based degrees from both Gonzaga University and Eastern Washington University.

Additionally, the company also has hired several tech analysts and engineers from outside the area.

“They’ve come here, looked at our quality of life, access to the outdoors, and low cost of living, and have made Spokane home,” Tabacek says. “It’s really an exciting time for us right now.”