David Bellini, Co‑Founder and Chief Executive Officer, CyberFOX

August 2026 —Invest: spoke with David Bellini, co-founder and chief executive officer of CyberFOX, about the company’s growth, Tampa Bay’s cybersecurity ecosystem, and the importance of preparing before a cyber incident occurs. “We want to be the Palo Alto Networks for small, medium-sized business,” Bellini said.

What have been some of CyberFOX’s key milestones over the past year?

We started CyberFOX right in the middle of COVID, which was scary because we were launching a software company during a period of major uncertainty. At the time, we had about two people. Today, we have around 160 people, and the company has grown very quickly.

Cybersecurity became a major topic during COVID because everyone went home, and business systems became much more exposed. The attack surface quadrupled. Since then, we have seen tremendous growth. We are doing above $20 million in annual sales.

One of the big milestones was completing an investment with a private equity firm at the end of last year. That has been very helpful as we prepare to buy other cybersecurity companies. We are looking to keep growing in Tampa in a similar way to what we did with ConnectWise, which grew to about $250 million in annual sales.

What strengths does Tampa Bay offer for cybersecurity and software companies?

There are quite a few software security companies in the Tampa Bay area, more than many people realize. Tampa also has a strong feeder system with the University of Tampa and USF. We hire a lot of people right out of college, and that has been a great experience because you can train people the way you want to train them.

Arnie and I started our businesses back in 1984, and they have always been Tampa-based companies. Tampa has been a great place to build a company because you can pay employees a decent wage, and they can go out and buy a house. In a place like San Francisco, that is much harder.

Tampa has become more expensive over the last 10 years, but it remains a great place for people who want a job, want to buy a house, and want to start a family. It has also been a very good pro-business environment.

What vulnerabilities are organizations underestimating when it comes to cybersecurity?

AI has caused cybersecurity attacks to multiply. AI can operate all night long, and it can figure out things that bad actors might not be able to figure out on their own. That has accelerated attacks significantly.

We have to use AI on our side to protect systems. The problem has become worse because the attack surface expanded so much during COVID. Even at our company, people work in the office three days a week and from home two days a week. I do not know where all of those computers are, who has access to that equipment, or what kind of firewall people have at home.

That makes it more important for companies to protect all of their systems much better than they do now.

What trends are you seeing among small and mid-sized businesses regarding cybersecurity investment and preparedness?

One of the places where we have done a good job is keeping cybersecurity simple and inexpensive. Tampa Bay is made up mostly of small and medium-sized businesses. They cannot afford a CrowdStrike-type offering, which is very expensive, or solutions designed for Fortune 500 companies that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Most small businesses can afford maybe $30 per employee per month. Maybe you can stretch that to $50, but they need all the cybersecurity they can get within that range. They also need cybersecurity insurance, which may be another $50 per employee per month.

Small businesses cannot afford to spend $10,000 or $20,000 a month on cybersecurity, so we focus on keeping it simple and inexpensive. That is especially important for lean IT teams that are under-resourced.

How are you attracting and retaining talent for CyberFOX?

One advantage of remote work is that it helps us attract development talent. When we ran ConnectWise, all of the developers were in Tampa. That is probably not realistic anymore, so you have to find developer talent wherever you can.

Some of our developers are in Philadelphia, some are near the Mexican border in Texas, and many are in Uruguay. Development is the only position where we allow that level of remote flexibility because it is the hardest talent to find. Now, we also need people who know how to develop with AI.

Everyone else is in Tampa. Our accounting, support, operations, sales, and marketing teams are all here. Tampa has a healthy business market, and there is good talent working across many great companies.

We also see a lot of students come to the University of Tampa from the Northeast. They are from places like Massachusetts, Virginia, New York, and Boston. They come here for college, live here for four years, and then do not want to go back. They stay, which has been great for the talent pool. Florida also has no income tax, which is very helpful, and the area is strong from a tax and regulatory standpoint for running a business.

What distinguishes Tampa Bay from other emerging tech hubs in the United States?

Arnie calls it Cyber Bay instead of Tampa Bay, and he has a big trade show every year that we participate in. The Bellini family goal is to create 70,000 high-tech jobs in the Tampa Bay area.

I have produced about 150 jobs here, so I have a long way to go. We have to keep building and creating more jobs. I am very pleased that these are good jobs. Young people are coming out of college, buying houses, getting married, and having children. It is wonderful to be part of that.

Arnie will build Cyber Bay. It might take five to 10 years, but in 10 years, the only concern may be whether there is enough hotel space in the Tampa Bay area because that is how big it could become.

What should business leaders prioritize today to remain resilient against cybersecurity threats?

A lot of businesses do not know what their cybersecurity insurance covers, and that is important. It is similar to people who were wiped out by a hurricane and thought they had insurance but did not have the right coverage.

We talk about being right of boom. When you have a cybersecurity incident, everything after that is right of boom. The incident hits, and then you are trying to keep your business alive.

Businesses need to understand what their insurance will cover and what the insurance company wants them to do first after an incident. They may want you to call them or contact a specific lawyer. It is important for companies to simulate an incident and work through the response. Who do we call? What computers do we turn off? Should we report this to the FBI?

There is also more regulation requiring companies to disclose incidents. You may have to tell your bank within a certain period of time. You cannot hide it, and that is fair because if you have loans with a bank, they should know if you have had an incident.

Businesses should work with their insurance companies, understand their coverage, and know what to do if an incident occurs. That is where many companies fall short.

What are CyberFOX’s main priorities for product development and expansion in the coming years?

We want to be the Palo Alto Networks for small, medium-sized businesses.

We are always looking for companies that fit our criteria, meet our goals of simple cybersecurity, and we have identified several companies and products that meet that criteria. The goal is to provide 80% of the coverage at a 90% discount. We want to make sure our products are reasonably priced for the SMB market.

AI is also changing how we develop products. All of our developers are starting to develop with AI, which allows them to write code 10 or 20 times faster. That helps us build products with less money, less headcount, and faster timelines, which allows us to deliver them for less.