Exclusive Interview with Karmesh Gupta, CEO & Co-Founder of WiJungle

Information security requires installing and integrating several products from different vendors – which is typically adopted to overcome security challenges on an ad-hoc basis. But systems that have grown robust with growing advanced technologies require a holistic solution that involves combining two or more security services into one platform. WiJungle is the world's first United Network Security Gateway, an integrated and open security solution provider, which enables visibility and simplicity and maximizes your operational efficiency with automated workflows. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Karmesh Gupta, CEO & Co-Founder of WiJungle.

1. Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers.

WiJungle is a Unified Network Security Gateway that enables organizations to manage and secure their entire network through a single window. All In One Appliance not only simplifies the management but also cuts the cost of investment by up to 60%. Data Security Council of India recognized WiJungle as among the Most Innovative Product of The Year 2018. Being an initiative under "Make in India", WiJungle, the only prominent player in the Unified Network Security space, has emerged as the Government's New Face of Cyber Security. It is extensively serving more than 15 ministries & the PMO in the central government along with numerous state-level organizations.  

2. With what mission and objectives, the company was set up? In short, tell us about your journey since the inception of the company.  

From the beginning the objective of WiJungle was absolutely clear: we wanted to build a global technology product. Here we are talking about 2014 when the technology sector was dominated by foreign products and very few Indian companies were doing well and selling across the globe in that moment of realization, we knew that we have to build a world-class product. The journey so far has been full of ups and downs and changes in 2014 when we thought of coming up with completely free wifi with no time or data limit. We offered this when 1GB of data cost somewhere around 300 INR per month and it was very difficult for people to afford internet. But, due to certain reasons, things didn't work out for us and we had to bear a big financial loss. Post that we were left with very few resources and this is when we decided to try our luck in IT services. This helped us in covering the 70% of loss we had from serving Patanjali, Indian railways, and others. So, by the end of 2016, we thought of doing a comeback in the product space and we realized that this wasn't our goal we wanted to create a global product that could bring recognition to our country. So we went back to our initial product that offered free WiFi and turned it into a social wifi service. Initially, we sold the product to 13-14 restaurants in the first month but as we moved to the second month precisely around February 2017, JIO announced their 303-plan offering 1.5 GB of data per day available on JIO phones which was enough for an individual. So, the social WiFi concept was of use only until people didn't have the liberty to access the new internet plan being offered. Now since data was available in abundance, we realized that social wifi is not the future in this industry and the larger player is already serving a solution to the problem in a much more efficient way. We thought about what to do next. We needed to be ready for the ever-changing industry. That's when we thought that when every household will have broadband and access to unlimited internet, security will be a major concern and that will be the next phase of the digitization phase of the country. So, we decided to be on the early curve. We were well versed in addressing the gaps which were present in the security market based on our experience and the data we had during the free WiFi implementation. We knew, and the expertise, and we tried our luck in what we knew already and to go into a space that is very promising in the future, and this is how we entered the security market and we came up with the concept of the unified cyber security platform in 2017. It took almost a year to develop the product and now it's almost been 3 years since we are selling our product worldwide.

3. Brief us about the proactive Founder/CEO of the company and his/her contributions to the company and the industry.

I started his journey in the second semester of B.Tech when I got the opportunity to work with Rajasthan Royals as a CSR Executive. Since then, there was no looking back and established milestones every day. Due to my keen interest in Cyber Security, I completed his certification in ethical hacking and joined Lucideus Technology as an analyst. Thereafter I served as COO at Decent Solutions, Gwalior, and then later co-founded the startup – HttpCart Technologies (A leading IT product company) in Oct. 2014. In April 2015, HttpCart became the first ever Indian private company to launch a completely Free WiFi – "WiJungle" as a 24*7 monitoring service provider. WiJungle now is a Unified Network Security Gateway Appliance that enables organizations to manage and secure their entire network through a single window. Being the only all-in-one product, WiJungle has a customer base across 25+ countries worldwide.

4. Tell us how your company is contributing to the IoT/AI/Big Data Analytics/Robotics/Self-Driving Vehicles/Cloud Computing industry of the nation and how the company is benefiting the clients.

What I believe is that IOT/AI/Big Data analytics are all representing industry 4.0 and cyber security is also one of the verticals. I keep emphasizing on this that cybersecurity players are the front runners of the industry India's 30% GDP is constituted by the SNBs which lack money, awareness, and manpower to set up and implement a cyber security structure. So, we as a company are trying our best to empower around 1Bn SNBs by 2025.

5. Kindly share your point of view on the current scenario of Big Data Analytics and its future.

I would rather prefer to highlight the importance of Big Data Analytics from the cyber security industry's point of view. So, there are multiple products that are being deployed by larger enterprises and their infrastructure. All of these products specialize in producing data and logs and these logs come to a source solution where they are analyzed and derive meaningful analytics. This function is of extreme importance in cybersecurity because when so many devices are generating data it becomes very important to analyze and bring a meaningful conclusion out of it.

6. Kindly mention some of the major challenges the company has faced till now.

Irrespective of the nature of the industry everyone faces challenges daily. Challenges come from different directions. It could be from HR, sales, delivery, or might be something technical. But at the end of the day, these challenges make you stronger and the experiences help in dealing with future problems.

7. What is your biggest USP that differentiates the company from competitors?

WiJungle is a unified network security gateway that helps organizations to manage and safeguard their entire local area network through a single window. The Gartner listed product robustly serves industry verticals like enterprises, education, hospitality, healthcare, BFSI, transportation, retail, defense, smart cities, events, etc. across 20+ countries worldwide. Nasscom & Data Security Council of India recognized WiJungle among 'The Most Innovative Product of The Year 2018'.

Founded in 2017, WiJungle develops and markets the 'Unified Cyber Security Platform' and currently serves the government as well as private giants. The company is also among the highest-rated vendors on Gartner in network security and caters to the cybersecurity needs of businesses across multiple countries. Being the world's first Unified Cyber Security Platform, WiJungle solves the complexity of cybersecurity and data protection.