Tenable, Inc.

Tenable Holdings, Inc. is a cybersecurity company based in Columbia, Maryland. Its vulnerability scanner software Nessus, developed in 1998, is one of the most widely deployed vulnerability assessment solutions in the cybersecurity industry.[1] As of December 31, 2023, the company had approximately 44,000 customers, including 65% of the Fortune 500.[1]

History

Tenable was founded in September 2002 as Tenable Network Security, Inc. by Ron Gula, Jack Huffard, and Renaud Deraison.[3] In April 1998, at age 17, Deraison had created the Nessus vulnerability scanner software, which he folded into Tenable upon creation of the company. In 2002, Gula, who worked for the National Security Agency in the 1990s, sold a company he founded to Enterasys Networks and was looking to start another company. In 2004, Marcus J. Ranum was hired as chief security officer.[4] In October 2005, to generate income for the company and to stop empowering competition, Nessus became proprietary software, rather than open-source software via the GNU General Public License.[5][6] At that time, the software was forked; OpenVAS became the open-source software version of the program.

In September 2012, Tenable received $50 million in series A round funding from Accel Partners.[7][8] Also that month, the company entered into a partnership to provide cybersecurity services for the United States Intelligence Community, partnering with In-Q-Tel.[9] In 2015, Tenable received $250 million in a series B round led by Insight Partners.[10] In 2016, Gula resigned as CEO, becoming chairman.[11] Effective January 2017, Amit Yoran became CEO of the company[12] and later that year, the company was renamed Tenable, Inc.[1] In July 2018, the company became a public company via an initial public offering.[13]

In October 2022, the company launched Tenable One, an exposure management platform.[14] In January 2023, the company launched a venture capital division, with plans to invest up to $25 million.[15]

In December 2024, Yoran took a medical leave after a cancer diagnosis and CFO Stephen Vintz and COO Mark Thurmond were appointed interim co-CEOs; Yoran died in January 2025.[16] Art Coviello was named chairman.[17][18] In the same month, the company acquired Vulcan Cyber.[19]

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