Global ambition of Darktrace chief whose firm is a step ahead of hackers

Strategy: Boss Poppy Gustafsson has recruited an ‘eccentric mix of talent’

Poppy Gustafsson could hardly be further from the old stereotype of a chief executive, being neither pompous, portly nor pinstriped. She only just turned 40 in the summer, but her zest and lack of pretension makes her seem even younger than that. 

Darktrace, the cybersecurity company she leads, was founded in Cambridge nine years ago and is staffed by an eclectic gang of mathematicians, former spooks and artificial intelligence experts. 

One of the original backers was Mike Lynch, the tech entrepreneur once hailed as the UK’s answer to Bill Gates. His support, which in the beginning brought huge kudos, has proved a very mixed blessing. Earlier this year he lost Britain’s biggest-ever fraud case and is now fighting extradition to the US – but more of him later. 

Darktrace is an award-winning innovative firm in a fast-growing industry and Gustafsson has an array of supporters ready to sing her praises. Directors and advisers include heavyweights such as former BT boss Sir Peter Bonfield; Tory party grandee Lord Willetts; ex-Home Secretary Amber Rudd; and former MI5 director general Lord Evans of Weardale. 

The business ticks all sorts of boxes: a female CEO, innovative technology, a flag-flier for the UK and a rapidly expanding potential market. Even so, not everyone is convinced. The company has been criticised by City analysts at Peel Hunt and has come under attack from a hedge fund whose founder, ominously, is nicknamed the Dark Destroyer. 

Many of the misgivings stem from its links with Lynch. 

The connection with the software tycoon dates back to the origins of the company, which was set up nine years ago in Cambridge by a group of former employees, including Gustafsson, from his former FTSE100 software business Autonomy. Earlier this year, he lost the fraud case in which he was accused of inflating the value of Autonomy before it was sold to US tech giant Hewlett-Packard in 2011. 

The tycoon stepped down from the Darktrace board in 2018 but he and his wife are still major shareholders. If he loses a fight against extradition, he could face a lengthy prison term in the States. He denies any wrongdoing.

Understandably, Lynch is not Gustafsson’s favourite subject. She is far keener to expound on how tech is far too important to be left exclusively to technologists and how she has encouraged an ‘eccentric mix of talent’ at the company, which has 2,200 staff in 47 offices around the world. 

The staff includes an immunologist and a theoretical linguist, who can spot signs of malicious activity such as shorter sentences, which are often used by criminals to create a false sense of urgency. There is even a medieval historian on the payroll, Rosie Cooper, who tells me how her studies have given her ‘interrogation skills’ that have come in useful at Darktrace before we veer into an absorbing discussion on Edith of Wilton, a tenth century princess and saint. 

Darktrace was one of a string of firms to float on the London stock market last year where its shares initially soared, though they have since fallen back along with those of other tech companies. 

A common refrain in the British tech community is that the US is a more congenial market with larger pools of capital and investors who possess a superior grasp of the sector but Gustafsson demurs. 

‘We have a fantastic heritage in cybersecurity in the UK with GCHQ and Bletchley Park. As a country, we are really good at this. I am super proud to be a British tech company listed here,’ she says. ‘I want to see the UK being heralded as one of the big players in the world.’ 

The recent falls in sterling are weighing on the company’s figures, because it reports its results in dollars. However, Gustafsson says she is focused on the long view, rather than fixating on the current state of the economy and the turmoil in Westminster. 

‘It’s really important to see through that. At the moment it is hard to tell what is noise, versus what is reality.’ One long-term issue for the UK is the dearth of tech companies on the listed markets because British firms have been rich pickings for foreign investors. 

Recently, Micro Focus agreed a deal with Canadian software firm Open Text and NortonLifeLock of the US is taking over cybersecurity firm Avast. And, of course, the takeover of Lynch’s Autonomy by Hewlett-Packard in 2011 is still making itself felt more than a decade on. 

Over the summer, news leaked out that Darktrace itself was a takeover target for US private equity firm Thoma Bravo, which in the end backed off without tabling a bid. ‘It was a conversation that leaked really early on,’ says Gustafsson, ‘a speculative opportunity that ultimately didn’t have legs.’ 

‘I am very proud and pleased to be a British company but my singular focus is on this business achieving everything it can. 

‘It is a big ball of potential energy and we are just desperate to unleash it on the world. So long as those bonkers ideas popping out of that R&D department in Cambridge have a chance to see the light of day, then that is the path we will take. Whatever happens, Britishness is embedded in our DNA.’ 

She claims Darktrace’s approach is different from its rivals because it anticipates how a hacker might operate. The new Prevent products launched this summer use artificial intelligence to help pre-empt future attacks. 

‘It is proactive – it shows how an attacker would look at your business. Our team are not running to stand still or having to retool every time there is a new threat.’ 

Given the escalation of cyber attacks, can the good guys really hope to win? ‘Yes, this is what we are doing’, she says, banging the table for emphasis. 

What, I wonder, given the endless capacity of hackers to come up with new strategies, is the most inventive attack she has seen? 

‘Oh, the parking meter one,’ she laughs. ‘Someone connected smart parking meters to a porn website. The parking meters had no screens so they couldn’t display the pornography. There seemed no point. But you can never predict what people will do and why.’ 

Her enthusiasm is infectious, but she has faced some scepticism. Broker Peel Hunt last autumn said some customers had pointed to a ‘gap between the promise and reality’ in the marketing and argued Darktrace was underinvesting in R&D. ‘A bit of scepticism is useful,’ she counters. ‘As long as we keep delivering, then it will dispel with time.’ 

Hedge fund ShadowFall, whose founder Matthew Earl is known as the Dark Destroyer, has also been critical, including over the R&D spend, the churn rate at which customers defect to rivals and the ties to Lynch. 

Gustafsson sighs philosophically when asked about the beleaguered billionaire. ‘Nine years ago he was a founding investor, but that has passed and we are a standalone business,’ she says. ‘He doesn’t get involved, I don’t see him.’

Whilst and Darktrace are no longer joined at the hip, they are not entirely separated either, since Lynch and his wife have a 12 percent stake and his ally Vanessa Colomar has a seat on the board. He remained a member of the company’s science and technology advisory council until earlier this year. 

There has been speculation Lynch might have to sell Darktrace shares to fund his legal bills, which have at some points been running at millions of pounds a month. Despite these complications, Gustafsson, who has two daughters aged six and two, gives off an air of thoroughly enjoying her job. 

‘I love it. It’s like being a parent. There are tough times and it can feel relentless, but you care about it so much.’ 

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk