Some ideas are too big to stay where they started.
Plainsea wasn’t planned. It wasn’t a calculated product launch or a boardroom decision. It was a necessity that turned into something bigger.
It started inside AMATAS, a cybersecurity service company from our portfolio, that knew traditional penetration testing better than most—and knew it wasn’t working. Too manual. Too slow. Too dependent on a talent pool that was already stretched thin. The industry needed something better. So AMATAS built it. Not a workaround. A new way forward.
It started as an internal tool. Then it became something more. Too effective to keep in-house. Too valuable to stay small.
That’s where our ecosystem comes in. We aren’t your typical investor that simply funds businesses. We do more—we create the space for them to evolve. When a company builds something with the power to stand on its own, we make sure it does.
Plainsea is the first product company to emerge from our portfolio. And we plan to make it the first of many.
But how did we get here? How does a cybersecurity services company spin off a product powerhouse? What makes Plainsea different from everything else on the market? And what is it about Ocean’s ecosystem that makes these kinds of breakthroughs possible?
Let’s get into it.
The Cybersecurity Bottleneck – Why Plainsea Had to Happen
There was a time when traditional penetration testing was enough. Security teams would run assessments, identify vulnerabilities, patch them up, and move on until they needed to do it again the following year—or at least three quarters later. But threats are evolving in a matter of minutes, even seconds. The industry isn’t keeping up.
And the cracks are starting to show.
A Broken System at Scale
For cybersecurity teams, manual penetration testing is becoming a logistical nightmare. Scaling is next to impossible. The work is highly specialized, requires deep expertise, and—because it relies on human effort—is painfully slow.
Companies can’t just hire their way out of the problem. Trained penetration testers are expensive and in short supply. Even for organizations that have the resources, getting assessments done takes weeks—sometimes months. That means security gaps aren’t just small risks but rather wide-open doors, waiting to be exploited.
And when reports finally come in? They are nothing more than static snapshots of a moment in time. By the time vulnerabilities are compiled in those reports and sent to the end-client for remediation approval, new ones have already emerged.
For businesses that need continuous security assurance—especially those in finance, healthcare, and tech—this approach is highly inefficient. What’s more, it’s dangerous.
The Bottleneck AMATAS Lived Every Day
At the time of Plainsea’s idea inception, these challenges weren’t just industry-wide issues. They were daily realities for AMATAS.
Their teams were running penetration tests for organizations across multiple sectors, and they saw firsthand how broken the process was. Clients needed faster turnaround times. They needed real-time visibility. They needed solutions that worked at scale. But AMATAS, like every other cybersecurity provider, was stuck playing by outdated rules.
They could either keep struggling within a broken system or build something better.
They chose the latter.
The Birth of Plainsea – A Solution Built from the Trenches
And so, AMATAS built something better. That something was Plainsea.
At its core, Plainsea is a cybersecurity platform for service delivery, built to streamline and scale security operations. Its first focus? Revolutionizing penetration testing by augmenting it—enhancing human expertise with automation to make security testing continuous, efficient, and more effective than ever.
Here’s How It Works:
- Real-Time Vulnerability Mapping → Security teams can manually map infrastructure or automate discovery, ensuring full visibility at all times.
- Automated Risk Scoring → Plainsea integrates with current vulnerability databases, offering automated risk scoring according to various methodologies.
- AI-Enhanced Reporting → Reports are no longer dense, static documents. AI-powered summarization and structured insights make them clear, actionable, and tailored to decision-makers.
- Live Collaboration Features → Plainsea offers direct chat, comments, and notifications, facilitating real-time collaboration among team members.
- Pre-Built Runbooks & Compliance Integration → The platform provides tailored runbooks aligned with specific methodologies and industry standards, such as NIST and PCI, aiding in compliance efforts.
- Seamless Integrations → Plainsea is continuously broadening its capabilities, working on integrations with threat intelligence software, vulnerability assessment tools, and project management platforms like Jira to enhance cybersecurity service delivery.
And so, Plainsea offers a smarter, scalable approach to cybersecurity service delivery. The platform is specifically designed for MSSPs, security teams, and enterprises, and it ensures that security operations are continuous, efficient, and built to evolve.
How Ocean’s Playbook for Cybersecurity Innovation Powered Plainsea’s Rise
Launching a new cybersecurity platform is one thing, though. Getting the industry to take notice? That’s another. Thankfully, cybersecurity is one of the spaces where Ocean Investments has built some of its deepest expertise.
We’ve spent years in this space—backing, scaling, and working alongside some of the most forward-thinking security companies. We know the gaps. We’ve seen how service models struggle to keep up with rising threats. We understand what security teams need, often before the market does.
That’s why when Plainsea launched in 2024, it wasn’t stepping into the unknown—it was stepping into an industry we’ve been shaping for years.
At InfoSecurity Europe in London, Black Hat USA in Las Vegas, and the International Cyber Expo back in London, the platform went head-to-head with some of the biggest names in cybersecurity. Not just as another new tool in a crowded space, but as a product built from deep operational experience.
The response? Immediate. Security professionals recognized Plainsea for what it was—something designed by people who had lived their challenges firsthand. No one was asking whether penetration testing needed to change. That part was obvious. The real conversation revolved around how Plainsea was already making it happen.
And it wasn’t just security teams taking notice. By October, analysts had weighed in, too. The Bulgarian Cybersecurity Ecosystem Report recognized Plainsea as a leader in the shift from service-based models to product-driven security. A shift that the cybersecurity experts within Ocean have been driving for some time now—one that isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
With more organizations looking for cybersecurity solutions that scale, Plainsea is expanding alongside that demand—growing its presence in the US, UK, and EMEA. And as security teams move toward continuous, proactive defense, so does Plainsea—helping them validate risks in real time and access the security leadership they need, exactly when they need it.
Inside the Ocean Investments Ecosystem: Building the Next Generation of Product Companies
So, now that you know the story of Plainsea, let’s talk about what made it possible.
There’s a reason some companies break out while others plateau. It’s not just about capital, leadership, or even timing—it’s about the system they operate in. Some companies grow in isolation. Ours grow inside a dynamic ecosystem where expertise, insights, and breakthroughs don’t stay locked within a single team or industry.
We have built a network of interconnected companies, each benefiting from the knowledge, experience, and strengths of the others (inspired by the Team of Teams framework).
What Makes Our Ecosystem Different?
- Cross-Company Intelligence Flow → In most businesses, lessons learned stay in-house. Not here. When one company gains an edge—whether it’s a go-to-market playbook, an operational breakthrough, or a cybersecurity fix—it doesn’t stay locked within their walls. It circulates across the entire ecosystem, helping others move faster.
- Decentralized Problem-Solving → Traditional investment firms rely on top-down decision-making. We trust the expertise of operators on the ground. When a company in our network spots a problem or a market gap, they don’t wait for permission—they move. That’s how Plainsea was born.
- Embedded Expertise, No Silos → A cybersecurity founder solving an automation challenge might get input from a RegTech CEO who built a similar solution at scale. Our ecosystem is designed for these high-value collisions—where companies have access to the right experts at exactly the right time.
- Resource Sharing at Scale → Instead of every company figuring things out from scratch, they plug into shared infrastructure—whether it’s talent, compliance frameworks, market access, or technical expertise—allowing them to scale more efficiently.
- A Market-First, Not Investor-First Model → Many investors optimize for portfolio returns first, company outcomes second. We do the opposite. The companies drive the strategy. The ecosystem exists to support them, not the other way around.
Plainsea proved what’s possible. And there’s more to come.
Over the next years, we’re ramping up our focus on product innovation—helping more companies from our portfolio transition from service-based models to scalable, category-defining products.
Because building great companies is one thing. Building the right ecosystem so more great companies emerge? That’s where the real impact happens.
More Innovation Ahead!
And so, the future looks bold—because it’s being built that way.
If you’re looking for a cybersecurity partner that delivers continuous, real-time security validation, Plainsea is ready. If you’re building a company that belongs in an ecosystem where services evolve into market-defining products, Ocean Investments is where it happens.
Let’s build what’s next.