A Decade of Growth and Market Leadership
Since its founding in 2011, CrowdStrike has established itself as a dominant force in the Cybersecurity Leadership industry, with its stock price soaring over fivefold since its 2019 initial public offering (IPO). The company, headquartered in Austin, Texas, employs more than 10,000 people worldwide and has significantly transformed cybersecurity solutions.
CrowdStrike was co-founded by George Kurtz, Dmitri Alperovitch, and Gregg Marston to address inefficiencies in traditional security models. Kurtz, now serving as CEO, conceptualized the company after witnessing limitations in antivirus solutions during his tenure as McAfee’s Chief Technology Officer. In June 2019, CrowdStrike’s IPO raised $612 million at a share price of $34, and today, the company boasts a market capitalization exceeding $90 billion.
Before launching CrowdStrike, Kurtz had founded Foundstone, a security firm acquired by McAfee in 2004 for $86 million. Alperovitch, who served as Chief Technology Officer until 2020, had also worked at McAfee before co-founding the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a nonprofit organization.
Falcon Platform Redefines Cybersecurity Leadership
CrowdStrike’s flagship Falcon platform has revolutionized traditional security approaches by moving away from signature-based detection and employing a cloud-native architecture. This innovative system leverages behavioral analysis and machine learning to detect and prevent advanced threats across endpoints, cloud environments, and identity management systems.
The company has enhanced its offerings through strategic acquisitions, such as Preempt Security for $96 million in 2020, which boosted its identity protection capabilities, and Humio for $400 million in 2021, strengthening log management and observability. These developments have enabled CrowdStrike to expand beyond endpoint protection into areas including cloud security, security operations, and threat intelligence.
A key advantage of the Falcon platform is its modular architecture, which allows customers to add security features without the need for additional installations. This streamlined approach gives CrowdStrike a competitive edge over traditional vendors that require multiple products and agents to function effectively.
Rising Cyber Threats and AI-Powered Security Innovations
According to CrowdStrike’s 2025 Global Threat Report, the company has observed a 150% increase in Chinese cyber espionage activities, with targeted attacks against financial services, media, and manufacturing industries surging by 300%. The company’s threat intelligence team, which monitors over 250 known adversaries and 140 emerging attack groups, identified seven new Chinese-linked threats in 2024 alone.
The report highlighted a significant shift in Cybersecurity Leadership strategies, with 79% of breaches now being malware-free, relying instead on stolen credentials to gain unauthorized access. Notably, the average breakout time—how quickly attackers move within a system after an initial breach—has dropped to 48 minutes, with the fastest recorded instance at just 51 seconds. This rapid infiltration coincides with a 442% rise in voice phishing between the first and second halves of 2024.
To counter these threats, CrowdStrike has partnered with Nvidia to advance agentic AI capabilities within its cybersecurity systems. By integrating Nvidia NIM microservices, the company has doubled the speed of its AI-driven detection triage while reducing compute resource usage by 50%. This collaboration also explores Nvidia’s Llama Nemotron reasoning models to enhance security response times.
Daniel Bernard, Chief Business Officer at CrowdStrike, emphasized the importance of AI-driven cybersecurity, stating, “The future of cybersecurity is agentic AI—where advanced reasoning models work seamlessly with human analysts to stop breaches faster than ever.”
