Saket Modi (born July 31, 1990) is an

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

, co-founder and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of Safe Security, a

cybersecurity Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, the ...

and digital business risk quantification company, based out of Palo Alto, California.

Early life

Modi is born and raised in Kolkata, India. His father is a businessman. He attended school at

Lakshmipat Singhania Academy Lakshmipat Singhania Academy (LSA) are a group of schools run by Lakshmipat Singhania Education Foundation, a subsidiary of the J.K. Group. There are two branches of LSA - in Kolkata, West Bengal and Bissau, Jhunjhunu District, Rajasthan. The ...

. In school, Modi was often found in the computer laboratory and it is there that he realised he could access the chemistry question paper stored in a password protected file. By using a simple ‘

brute force Brute Force or brute force may refer to: Techniques * Brute force method or proof by exhaustion, a method of mathematical proof * Brute-force attack, a cryptanalytic attack * Brute-force search, a computer problem-solving technique People * Brut ...

’ tool, which was available for free on the Internet, he was able to unlock the paper. He later confessed to his teacher but this small incident helped Modi realize that he could use his skills for social good. In 2012, he received his undergraduate engineering degree from the

LNM Institute of Information Technology The LNM Institute of Information Technology (LNMIIT), is an institute of higher learning that is deemed to be a university. It is located in Jaipur, India, on a campus. The institute is a public-private partnership venture between the LNM Found ...

, Jaipur with a major in computer science. As an undergraduate student, Saket conducted several hands-on workshops on ethical hacking at

Indian Institutes of Technology The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are central government owned public technical institutes located across India. They are under the ownership of the Ministry of Education of the Government of India. They are governed by the Instit ...

(IIT) campuses across India.

Career

In 2012, while in his fourth year of college, Saket Modi, Vidit Baxi and Rahul Tyagi started Lucideus (now known as Safe Security) at the incubation center in IIT Bombay, using capital from their personal savings and family. In 2013, Lucideus opened its first office in New Delhi. The company was known for doing a security assessment of the BHIM, an Aadhaar-based mobile payment platform designed by the National Payments Corporation of India. In 2017, Lucideus secured its initial round of funding with $2 million from Sri Shivananda ( CTO, PayPal), Rajan Anandan (Managing Director,

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. , Sequoia's total a ...

), Victor Menezes (ex-Senior Vice-chairman,

Citibank Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City ...

), Vikas Agnihotri (Operating Partner, Softbank Group), Mickey Doshi (CEO,

Credit Suisse Credit Suisse Group AG is a global investment bank and financial services firm founded and based in Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, it maintains offices in all major financial centers around the world and is one of the nine global " ...

, India), among others. In 2018, Cisco's former Chairman and CEO John T. Chambers led an investment round of $5 million through JC2 Ventures to invest in Lucideus. Chambers asked Modi to describe his business in 15 seconds and was hooked by the reply. In 2019, Lucideus expanded its operations to the USA and other markets in the APAC region, and shifted their headquarters to Palo Alto, California.

Public appearances

Modi has appeared as a guest on television programs including CNBC, Fortune (magazine), Forbes, and Bloomberg. Also, he has spoken on various subject of information security and entrepreneurship at international forums like

Mobile World Congress MWC Barcelona (formerly but still commonly referred to as Mobile World Congress) is an annual trade show organised by GSMA, dedicated primarily to the mobile communications industry. The event is held in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain at the Fir ...

CeBIT CeBIT was the largest and most internationally representative computer expo. The trade fair was held each year on the Hanover fairground, the world's largest fairground, in Hanover, Germany. In its day, it was considered a barometer of cur ...

Confederation of Indian Industry The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is a non-governmental trade association and advocacy group headquartered in New Delhi, India, founded in 1895. CII engages business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global ...

, ISACA,

TiE Tie has two principal meanings: * Tie (draw), a finish to a competition with identical results, particularly sports * Necktie, a long piece of cloth worn around the neck or shoulders Tie or TIE may also refer to: Engineering and technology * Ti ...

, TED (conference), etc.

Awards and honours

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Modi, Saket Living people Indian businesspeople 1990 births Indian technology company founders Indian chief executives 21st-century Indian businesspeople Businesspeople from Kolkata Indian expatriates in the United States Businesspeople from California