CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 by George Kurtz, Dmitri Alperovitch, and Gregg Marston in Austin, Texas. Kurtz, a former McAfee CTO, started the company to address what he saw as a fundamental flaw in endpoint security: legacy antivirus products that relied on signature databases couldn’t keep up with modern threats.
CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform uses a cloud-native, AI-driven approach to endpoint detection and response (EDR). Instead of running traditional scans, Falcon analyzes behavior patterns across its entire customer base to identify threats in real time. The platform ingests trillions of security events daily.
The company gained public fame in 2016 when it investigated the DNC hack and attributed it to Russian intelligence. CrowdStrike went public on Nasdaq in 2019 and has grown into one of the largest pure-play cybersecurity companies, with annual recurring revenue exceeding $3.4 billion as of early 2024.
In July 2024, CrowdStrike made headlines for the wrong reason: a faulty Falcon sensor update caused millions of Windows machines worldwide to crash with blue screens. The incident disrupted airlines, hospitals, and businesses globally. Despite this setback, CrowdStrike’s customer retention remained strong.
The Falcon platform has expanded well beyond endpoint protection to cover cloud security, identity protection, log management, and threat intelligence. CrowdStrike serves over 29,000 customers, including many Fortune 500 companies.
Headquartered in Austin with offices globally, CrowdStrike employs over 8,000 people. Its market cap has generally hovered around $60-80 billion, placing it among the most valuable cybersecurity firms.
